Mark Steyn ✓ 6 Read & Download
It's the end of the world as we know it...
Someday soon, you might wake up to the call to prayer from a muezzin. Europeans already are. And liberals will still tell you that diversity is our strength--while Talibanic enforcers cruise Greenwich Village burning books and barber shops, the Supreme Court decides sharia law doesn't violate the separation of church and state, and the Hollywood Left decides to give up on gay rights in favor of the much safer charms of polygamy. If you think this can't happen, you haven't been paying attention, as the hilarious, provocative, and brilliant Mark Steyn--the most popular conservative columnist in the English-speaking world--shows to devastating effect. The future, as Steyn shows, belongs to the fecund and the confident. And the Islamists are both, while the West is looking ever more like the ruins of a civilization. But America can survive, prosper, and defend its freedom only if it continues to believe in itself, in the sturdier virtues of self-reliance (not government), in the centrality of family, and in the conviction that our country really is the world's last best hope. Mark Steyn's America Alone is laugh-out-loud funny--but it will also change the way you look at the world.
America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It
Fundamentalist Islamic Fascism is my acronym for the continuing struggle, what the namby-pamby call the war on terrorism. But terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology, and Islam is the ideology we are contending with, and will continue to contend with, as Steyn's book so aptly points out: it's all about demographics. While the west is navel-gazing, shuttling their only child to ballet, karate, and soccer, the east is having six, eight, and ten children per family. Quite simply, they will outnumber us in short order and America will face the prospect of living under sharia law. Like the proverbial camel's nose under the tent, America (like France and England now) will become a part of the Islamic caliphate, if only by attrition of non-Islamic populations. In 50 years there will not be a Greek alive. Think about that and read Steyn's chilling, compelling book. English Update: 27 February 2016
This is how it starts isn't it, through this book and others of its ilk?
On Thanksgiving, a Pittsburgh man accosted his Moroccan cab driver with questions about ISIS, then shot him. Two weeks later, a Michigan man called an Indian store clerk a terrorist before shooting him in the face. On Christmas eve in Texas, a local man charged into a Muslim-owned tire shop and shouted Muslim! as he opened fire, killing one and critically wounding another.I know that I'm a voice in the wilderness here, that many of the people who read this book will never change their minds. Nevertheless, I want to note that I was at a Madonna concert last night. Out here in Southeast Asia, there were many women in the audience that were Muslim, who stood out because they were wearing the head covering known in SE Asia as the tudung. They were dancing away and clapping and cheering and laughing at the raunchy songs, the simulated masturbation, the images of gay couples. They cheered when a young Chinese man went onstage wearing a T-shirt proclaiming, I was straight until Madonna saved me. Not exactly your idea of some traditional, oppressed woman hiding at home and popping out Jihadi babies is it?
And you know what the biggest irony is? The archibishop of the local diocese had recently sent a missive to all Catholics of the country to, as good Catholics, boycott the concert. The contrast between the two couldn't be more stark.
There are as many different kinds of Muslims as there are different kinds of Christians. A very large majority of Muslims are like these women at the Madonna concert: more interested in having a good time and then being moderately religious on Friday than anything else. Frankly, I'd find them more fun to be with than Pat Robertson or Mark Steyn or the Catholic archbishop. At least they aren't interested in converting me or hating me for being gay.
Update: 26 January 2016
Oh, come on guys, just come clean and say the words, Final Solution.
When you get these terrorists, Trump said, you have to take out their families.... and the crowd roared their approvalAt least we'll all know where you stand. Just lovin' it!
Update: 12 February 2015
In the wake of the Chapel Hill shooting and the tragic deaths of three young persons who happen espouse the Muslim religion, I think it's worthwhile to add to this review. Books like this are what add to the bigotry and hate. The repeated telling of the lie that the Muslim-Other is the Bogeyman that Must be Destroyed is what leads to incidents like this. To paraphrase Rupert Murdoch, I think all the atheists and white people and especially those who like this book need to stand up and take responsibility for the actions of this murderer and apologise for what your community has done. After all, that's simply applying the kind of logic of this book to yourself.
PS: As a committed and fervent atheist, may I humbly plead with everyone to understand that this man's actions do not reflect my beliefs nor the beliefs of all atheists. Many of us do not believe in violence or in killing theists. We respect the rights of theists to believe what they believe, even while we hope that they will one day see the true light.
Update: December 2011
Ooo, don't they look like scary Muslim fanatics?
Oh… Christian right-wing terrorist?… You sure they're not Muslim? You mean the deadliest terrorist mass killing in 2011 on European soil was perpetrated by a right-wing Christian white supremacist? Errr…
THE FACTS DON'T MATTER. THIS IS RIGHT BECAUSE I SAY IT'S RIGHT!! LA LA LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!
Here are some actual facts to put things in perspective. It might be useful to note that between 1970 and 2005, the IRA detonated some 19,000 bombs in the UK (with quite a bit of support from Irish nationalists residing in the US). That's 760 bombs a year or an average of TWO A DAY.
In comparison, how many Islamist bomb attacks have there been in Europe since 2001? None. Actually, the biggest bomb attack on Western European soil in recent years has been by the Basque separatists in Spain, not remotely Muslim in any way, shape, or form. And, of course, Anders Breivik perpetrated the most recent mass killing.
Sadly for the thesis in this
Original Review
By parity of reasoning:
- Because Columbine took place, ALL Americans are gun-crazy nut-jobs that seriously hate their lives and want to kill everyone.
- Because the Ku Klux Klan exists in America, ALL Americans are racists who want to lynch and/or enslave anyone who is not white.
- Because there are fundamentalist Christian churches in America who are anti-abortion and believe that wives should be subservient to their husbands, ALL Americans are fundamentalist Christians who are anti-abortion and believe that wives should be subservient to their husbands.
Yes, yes, all the millions and millions and millions of Americans living across America all live and think in exactly the same way, no exceptions. Wow. That's like, waaayyyy deep, dude!
We've seen this kind of racist demonising before. It was in Germany, 1939, by this guy with a funny moustache. He was talking about Jews. Funny, I thought he was the facist.
English This book is a waste of trees and space, especially in the overcrowded North Asian country where it was given to me. It also disgraces the hardback book format.
I have no difficulty reading books with views that differ from mine, but I do not read stupid books.
The preface alone characterizes the 1980s and 1990s strife in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Balkans as the fault of ingrates who refused to accept the political boundaries given them by Western European Liberal Democracies.
Of course, being a journalist with a laughably uneducated audience, he would never use the term liberal democracy, concerned that the use of the word liberal would make them uneasy, what with that term's derision on talk radio. So, he just says democracy. It's incorrect, but let's not have our readers think too much, k?
This man still believes in the America's about knowing what's best for yourself ideal, and apparently earnestly.
Don't read this book. Not even as a joke. It's that bad.
Keep in mind I've not even gotten to the substance of the book.
Steyn argues that Muslims intrinsically advocate theocracy, as will their children. There may soon be more muslims than christians. This means that our children will all follow Wahhabic Islam, unless we act now. To avoid that, we need to stop being warm fuzzy multiculturalists.
No, seriously. This is the substance of the book.
*edit* aug 2011
I wonder how many of the people on this website recall or were aware of the controversy when we first had a Roman Catholic running for President, and how the exact same dumb arguments about the central flaws of multipurpose-culture-to-blame/inconvenient-poor-people/those-not-like-us keep coming up every couple decades.
I talked about this briefly on my blog, and ended up linked on his homepage for a couple days. I got so much fucking annoying harassment from his fans, all of whom were utter morons.
Wow. I didn't realize I had that kind of vitriol left in me. English Yes this stellar book is about demography. But it is also about civilizational will. Western civilization has given so many hard earned gifts to the world (if you don't know what these gifts I speak of are, I would humbly ask you to read anything from historian Will Durant or Paul Johnson). The question is do we have the will to preserve them? Whatever your feelings about Islam and wars, you have to ask yourself: is having large numbers of un-assimilated Muslim immigrants in Europe, people who in fact hate western culture a good thing in light of the fact that they are out breeding the native, assimilated population? In France, about 10% of the population is Muslim - that isn't big problem. The big problem is that 40% of the 20 year olds in the major cities are Muslim. In a generation, they will take the reigns of power. How French will France be then? We in America have demographic problems too, be we are fortunate (America has always been so very fortunate, thank God) that our immigrants want to be Americans. English To put it simply, I really liked this book. From the writer's style and wit to the information conveyed, this is your typical can't put down book. For those of you who aren't quite convinced that global warming is THE greatest threat to life as we know it, this book is for you. The author's coverage of topics, including how demographics and Europe's general lack of Christian religion has allowed for major changes to take place in many European countries (one of my favorite quotes from the book comes to mind: when religion is marginalized, only the marginalized have religion). Fundalmentalism in any form is dangerous. It especially becomes dangerous when those fundalmentalists think you should convert or be killed. For me, I think Islamo-fascism poses a greater threat to our way of life than the hypothesis called global warming. Just a thought.
This book is very smartly written, and is not an emotional rant. He has done his homework and knows his topic well. English
Someone I know challenged me to read this and I did from the perspective of understanding people I disagree with. I still disagree though I can see how such a carefully constructed and camouflaged screed can have a certain seductive appeal. In the end, while I can't help but agree with some of the author's opinions of political correctness and the like, this book can be safely categorized as racism loudly claiming not to be racism. English Mr Steyn's main premise rests on three pillars:
1. The West is in demographic decline while Muslim nations breed at a far higher rate.
2. The West is too bulky with bloated government and social welfare programs that cannot be sustained.
3. We are too tired (what he terms civilizational exhaustion) and ashamed of our greatness to do anything about it.
And if America cannot summon the will to shape the emerging world it will be the end of the American moment. In the demographic section of the book he takes to task, time and again, the doomsday predictions of the ecochondriac crowd and overpopulation charlatans and points out that the granddaddy of root causes (demography) tells us our planet will be uninhabited before it is uninhabitable. It is human inventiveness that solves those problems and that is the commodity we are running out of.
The conceit of a book like this, in dealing with demographics, is its conclusions are premised on the idea that things will stay the same. But it is by far the funniest in the death of the West genre and my only complaint is lack of footnotes. English Some of you will dislike this book without reading it, I accept that and live with it. All I can do is encourage you to take a look at it and it's subject matter with an open mind. Being honest with yourself is not the same as being prejudiced. You're only prejudiced if you make up your mind without thinking, before looking at the evidence and the arguments.
I won't try to run down the entire book, you can read it. I'll just ask a couple of questions. Have you followed the news? Are you aware that Europe has largely conceded on Sharia Law? Are you aware that the U.S, is the only western nation whose population is not declining? Are you aware that America's population is only maintaining? Are you aware that populations in the nations in the East and middle East are rocketing?
I wonder how the Supreme Court will rule when Sharia comes before it here in the U.S.
Look, read the book for yourself. Is there over reaction here? Is this just a sensible wake up call? Think about it, I know what I think...the key word here being, think. English Is the Welfare State leading us down the road to extinction? You bet, says Mark Stein and then he proceeds to make such a good case for that and the resulting Islamicization of Europe that he has been hauled before the Ontario Human Rights Commission on a charge of anti-PC heresy. This is a chilling and wonderfully written book, filled with Steyn's humorous barbs, directed against the timorous PC functionaries of the sort who would turn around every commode in the UK prison system so that Muslim convicts wont have to face Mecca while they take a crap (and also have taken the Union Jack down because it contains the Cross of St George, a foe of Islam). He serves up the crushing demographic numbers of European decline with a soupcon of wit and warns of the end to come if we continue on the present course. A must read. English Realized what I had already known from living in Europe for 2 years about population decline in the western world. A great way for a people to take over the world these days is to have lots of kids. Great information that everyone should know about how to protect ourselves from political correctness as well. English
