Book Review: America Alone - The End of the World as We Know It by Mark Steyn

If you're familiar with the work of Mark Steyn, there's probably no need to read this review. You either love him or you hate him - no one is ambivalent about his provocative, thought-provoking, and bitingly funny newspaper and magazine columns.

If you aren't familiar with his work, his book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It is pretty much the same as his essays, only more so. (Much of his work can be read at his website.) My description of his work as "provocative, thought-provocative, and bitingly funny" should tip you off to how I feel about Steyn, and needless to say, I devoured America Alone in near-record time.

Steyn's thesis, a recurring feature in his post-9/11 columns (many of which have been incorporated into the text of America Alone), is that cultural trends - particularly, heavy immigration from predominantly Muslim countries - are changing Europe almost beyond recognition:

...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. There'll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands - probably - just as in Istanbul there's still a building known as Hagia Sophia, or St. Sophia's Cathedral. But it's not a cathedral; it's merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate.
To put it succinctly, the birth rate among European Muslims is much higher than that of the dominant culture, so a major population shift seems almost inevitable. This would not be a problem, except that Europe's young Muslims ("youths" as they are inevitably described in news stories about rioting in the French suburbs) are more alienated and radicalized than their parents and even their youthful co-religionists in predominantly Muslim countries.

Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2Page 3

Article tags

Spread the word
Bookmark and Share
Profile image for damian-penny

Article Author: Damian Penny

Damian J. Penny, originally from Mount Pearl, Newfoundland, is a lawyer in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada. From 2001 until 2009, he was the proprietor of one of Canada's most popular right-of-centre political blogs, Daimnation!

Visit Damian Penny's author pageDamian Penny's Blog

Read comments on this article, and add some feedback of your own

Article comments

  • 1 - Natalie Bennett

    Nov 05, 2006 at 7:35 pm

    This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!

  • 2 - RJ Elliott

    Nov 05, 2006 at 9:51 pm

    "Interesting analogy, but is Steyn really suggesting that there shouldn't be "100 percent gun control" on commercial flights?"

    Yes. Pilots should have guns. And then there are the Air Marshalls...

  • 3 - C Sarnowski

    Nov 06, 2006 at 11:40 am

    I got here more or less by accident: but I'll throw in 2 cents.

    "flight control" (at least in the US) means people shouldn't be able to fly a plane where they want, when they want, with no training and no notification to FAA of where they are and when.
    "car control": not a phrase in use, but not a difficult concept, right? e.g. driver's license, car registration.
    Why is "gun control" so often conflated with "no guns, ever, under any circumstances?" I'm sure one can dig up supporters for this extreme position, but most gun control supporters are nowhere near that. As opposed to what I take as typical NRA line: everyone armed, no records, no limits, concealed or not. Anything less is "100% gun control."

Add your comment, speak your mind

Personal attacks are NOT allowed.
Please read our comment policy.
Please preview your comment.

blogcritics lists for Nov 12, 2009

fresh articles Most recent articles site-wide

fresh comments Most recent comments site-wide

most comments Most comments in 24hrs

top writers Most prolific Blogcritics for October

top commenters Most prolific Commenters in 24 hrs