America Alone
Encyclopedia
America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It (ISBN 0-89526-078-6) is a New York Times bestselling nonfiction book by Mark Steyn
, published in 2006. It has been recommended by George W. Bush
to his staff.
Christopher Hitchens
reviewed the book with praise, and describes it as "an admirably tough-minded book." Hitchens goes on in his review and states:
and centers on issues of demographics in Muslim
and non-Muslim populations. Steyn argues, "much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries." The declining populations in European countries coupled with both the increasingly high birth rates of Muslim countries and the increased Muslim immigration into European nations will, according to Steyn, lead to the end of modern European culture. The book's topics include:
Steyn attributes the inevitable fall of the Western world to three factors: 1) Demographic decline, 2) The unsustainability of the advanced Western social-democratic state, and 3) Civilizational exhaustion. In terms of demographic decline, European nations have very low birth rates while Muslim nations have very high birth rates. This causes several problems for the European countries. First, the European countries will simply run out of Europeans to repopulate their countries, and second, a youthful population is more capable of inciting a revolution than an older population is capable of defending against one.
The Western social-democratic state exacerbates this problem. Responsibilities of normal adults have been slowly taken over by the state—care of the elderly, childcare, and most recently, health care and insurance. Steyn argues that these programs erode humanity's basic sense of self-reliance to a point at which a more resilient group of people—Muslims in this case—will take control. Steyn sums up the problems of the previous two factors in a formula: "Age + Welfare = Disaster for you, Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way." Beyond a demographic problem, Europe lacks the will to defend itself, leading to the third factor: civilizational exhaustion.
Nations become so focused on moral and cultural relativism
—with "diversity" and "racism" as their new favorite words—that they are unable to see that their very existence is at stake. European nations have given up defending themselves and rely on America for their defense. Civilizational exhaustion goes beyond a lack of will to defend oneself and has manifest itself most visibly in its anti-Americanism
. America has become the prime example of everything that is wrong with the world, and to each group looking to find fault, it is something different. To the Muslims, America symbolizes gay porn and immorality; to Europe, America is a radical Christian
nation thinking only of Jesus
and abortion. America is viewed as a threat and an enemy, when it is in reality the most benign hegemon the world has ever seen. According to Steyn, America will be the last and only country—as all others will be taken over by Muslims—that will retain its sense of self-preservation, but this is not a given. America's enemies know that it ran from Vietnam and they hope that America will continue to flee when faced with a challenge.
Steyn's final argument is that an invasion from the Muslim world will not win in an outright attack, like flying planes into skyscrapers; in fact, an overt attack would be a bad strategy as it would invoke response from even the most flaccid nation. Europe will collapse from within: from wimpiness. If, rather than a physical attack, "you frame the issue in terms of multicultural 'sensitivity,' the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want—including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, during the Danish 'cartoon jihad' of 2006, Jack Straw, then British foreign secretary, hailed the 'sensitivity' of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending representations of the Prophet."
Steyn begins with examples of doomsday scenarios that have not and will not pan out—he mentions "climate change
", The Population Bomb
, The Limits to Growth, The Cooling: Has the New Ice Age Already Begun? Can We Survive?, nuclear winter
, and Jimmy Carter's 1977 prediction that the world's oil will run out in the next decade. Of all the scenarios mentioned, none have come to fruiting and most seem foolish in retrospect; however, during this same time period, the population of the developed world declined from about 30% of world population to around 20%, while the population of Muslim nations increased from about 15% to 20%.
Mark Steyn
Mark Steyn is a Canadian-born writer, conservative-leaning political commentator, and cultural critic. He has written five books, including America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller...
, published in 2006. It has been recommended by George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
to his staff.
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
reviewed the book with praise, and describes it as "an admirably tough-minded book." Hitchens goes on in his review and states:
- Mark Steyn's book is essentially a challenge to the bien-pensants among us: an insistence that we recognize an extraordinary threat and thus the possible need for extraordinary responses. He need not pose as if he were the only one with the courage to think in this way.
Overview
America Alone covers topics surrounding the global war on terrorWar on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
and centers on issues of demographics in Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
and non-Muslim populations. Steyn argues, "much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive the twenty-first century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most European countries." The declining populations in European countries coupled with both the increasingly high birth rates of Muslim countries and the increased Muslim immigration into European nations will, according to Steyn, lead to the end of modern European culture. The book's topics include:
- Chapter 1: The Coming of Age: Births vs. deaths
- Chapter 2: Going...Going...Gone: Demography vs. delusion
- Chapter 3: Men Are from Venus: Primary impulses vs. secondary impulses
- Chapter 4: Flying the Coop: Big Mo vs. Big Mac
- Chapter 5: The Anything They'll Believe In: Church vs. State
- Chapter 6: The Four Horsemen of the Eupocalypse: Eutopia vs. Eurabia
- Chapter 7: The State-of-the-Art Primitive: The known unknowns vs. the knowingly unknowing
- Chapter 8: The Unipole Apart: America vs. everyone else
- Chapter 9: The Importance of Being Exceptional: Citizens vs. dependents
- Chapter 10: The Falling Camel: Last legs
Steyn attributes the inevitable fall of the Western world to three factors: 1) Demographic decline, 2) The unsustainability of the advanced Western social-democratic state, and 3) Civilizational exhaustion. In terms of demographic decline, European nations have very low birth rates while Muslim nations have very high birth rates. This causes several problems for the European countries. First, the European countries will simply run out of Europeans to repopulate their countries, and second, a youthful population is more capable of inciting a revolution than an older population is capable of defending against one.
The Western social-democratic state exacerbates this problem. Responsibilities of normal adults have been slowly taken over by the state—care of the elderly, childcare, and most recently, health care and insurance. Steyn argues that these programs erode humanity's basic sense of self-reliance to a point at which a more resilient group of people—Muslims in this case—will take control. Steyn sums up the problems of the previous two factors in a formula: "Age + Welfare = Disaster for you, Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way." Beyond a demographic problem, Europe lacks the will to defend itself, leading to the third factor: civilizational exhaustion.
Nations become so focused on moral and cultural relativism
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual's own culture. This principle was established as axiomatic in anthropological research by Franz Boas in the first few decades of the 20th century and...
—with "diversity" and "racism" as their new favorite words—that they are unable to see that their very existence is at stake. European nations have given up defending themselves and rely on America for their defense. Civilizational exhaustion goes beyond a lack of will to defend oneself and has manifest itself most visibly in its anti-Americanism
Anti-Americanism
The term Anti-Americanism, or Anti-American Sentiment, refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, culture or government of the United States...
. America has become the prime example of everything that is wrong with the world, and to each group looking to find fault, it is something different. To the Muslims, America symbolizes gay porn and immorality; to Europe, America is a radical Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
nation thinking only of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and abortion. America is viewed as a threat and an enemy, when it is in reality the most benign hegemon the world has ever seen. According to Steyn, America will be the last and only country—as all others will be taken over by Muslims—that will retain its sense of self-preservation, but this is not a given. America's enemies know that it ran from Vietnam and they hope that America will continue to flee when faced with a challenge.
Steyn's final argument is that an invasion from the Muslim world will not win in an outright attack, like flying planes into skyscrapers; in fact, an overt attack would be a bad strategy as it would invoke response from even the most flaccid nation. Europe will collapse from within: from wimpiness. If, rather than a physical attack, "you frame the issue in terms of multicultural 'sensitivity,' the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want—including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, during the Danish 'cartoon jihad' of 2006, Jack Straw, then British foreign secretary, hailed the 'sensitivity' of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending representations of the Prophet."
Steyn begins with examples of doomsday scenarios that have not and will not pan out—he mentions "climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
", The Population Bomb
The Population Bomb
The Population Bomb was a best-selling book written by Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich , in 1968. It warned of the mass starvation of humans in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth...
, The Limits to Growth, The Cooling: Has the New Ice Age Already Begun? Can We Survive?, nuclear winter
Nuclear winter
Nuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
, and Jimmy Carter's 1977 prediction that the world's oil will run out in the next decade. Of all the scenarios mentioned, none have come to fruiting and most seem foolish in retrospect; however, during this same time period, the population of the developed world declined from about 30% of world population to around 20%, while the population of Muslim nations increased from about 15% to 20%.
See also
- The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations?The West's Last Chance: Will We Win the Clash of Civilizations? is a book by author Tony Blankley , first published in October 2005....
- We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative PessimismWe Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative PessimismWe Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism is a 2009 non-fiction book by British-American writer John Derbyshire. He draws upon classical conservative thinking to argue that modern Western civilization is dying and will eventually fail completely...
- The Death of the WestThe Death of the WestThe Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Culture and Civilization is a 2001 book by paleoconservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan.-Description of Book:...
- EurabiaEurabiaEurabia is a conspiracy theory about the alleged Arabization and Islamization of Europe, and the European leaders' alleged capitulation to Islamic influences.-Origin of the term:...
- Danish cartoon controversy
- Jack StrawJack StrawJack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also refer to:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" , 1971 song by the Grateful Dead* Jack Straw by W...
External links
- Home Alone, scroll down to chapter-preview links.
- A review of America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It by Theodore Dalrymple in Claremont Review of BooksClaremont Review of BooksThe Claremont Review of Books is a quarterly review of politics and statesmanship published by the Claremont Institute. Many consider it a conservative intellectual answer to the liberal New York Review of Books...
- BookBites - Quotes from America Alone
- Excerpt from book
- A hostile review by Johann HariJohann HariJohann Hari is an award winning British journalist who has been a columnist at The Independent, the The Huffington Post, and contributed to several other publications. In 2011, Hari was accused of plagiarism; he subsequently was suspended from The Independent and surrendered his 2008 Orwell Prize...
- A critical review of America Alone by Rayyan Al-Shawaf in the San Antonio Express-News
- Conversations with History: Mark Steyn, , University of California Television, 2007-03-14