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America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It

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At least, that's how he signed my copy. I'd call Mark Steyn's essay the single best distillation of the challenge posed to the West by radical Islam that I have ever read.

Regular readers of Mr. Steyn will not be unfamiliar with his central points:

1) In the ongoing conflict between the West and Islam, both the demographics and the will to power favor the Islamists. That a country like Spain, with a birth rate of 1.15 children per adult women, will extinguish itself in a few generations, while immigrants from countries such as Pakistan (birth rate 4.53) will move in to fill the vacuum.

2) That as an aggressive, unassimilated minority edges closer to a majority (as in France, with an estimated 30% Muslim population in the under 20 age group), the character of the democratic institutions will become more closely aligned with Islamic law and culture.

3) That the post-Christian welfare state is largely to blame for the pessimism and failures of will demonstrated by Europe.

4) That America represents the primary exception to this trend, if only by degree, and that only a concerted effort to save our society stands a chance of reversing these trends.

That's a reasonable précis of Steyn's book, and he is certainly not unique in either his diagnosis or his prescription for the West. What sets this apart is his writing. The argument is made in a way that is the most engrossing and entertaining presentation of these ideas I've ever read. Steyn, as part of his superhuman writing regimen, is the obituarist for The Atlantic Monthly, and he puts that talent on display. This is not just a description of a set of demographic realities, but a loving, if premature (he hopes), obituary to a dying great culture. It's Steyn's ability to blend humor with the terminal diagnosis that sets him apart.

Take the following, from letting the book fall open at random (pages 60-61), where Steyn weaves together these seemingly disparate ideas: a photo of Lincoln with his future assassin in near proximity, the globalization at the root of a bird flu scare ("Any minute now there would be toxic cockatoos over the white cliffs of Dover, and the East End would be reeling under a blitzkrieg of sneezing parakeets"), the Black Death in Europe in the 1340s, the exportation of radical Islam from the Bedouin to the West, and finally a quote for Dean Martin's old nightclub act. I can't even describe it adequately; Steyn actually pulls it off, brilliantly.

Finally, I'd like to try to approach the book from the opposite direction. Invariably, political book reviews become contentious. It may be apparent that I came to this book predisposed to agree with the thesis, and I would not argue. That said, I think this is one of the rare political books that could be read and enjoyed regardless of personal politics. Dare I say it, but Steyn might even change some minds. Between his inventive turns of phrase, his references to pop culture and classic Americana, and his interesting digressions on topics as diverse as the heyday of French television and European history in the Middle Ages, Steyn offers something for everyone. And that's appropriate. Unlike many political books, this does not seem written to say "I'm right and you're wrong", but rather "we're all in this together".

Why has Mark Steyn's book "America Alone" been labeled "alarmist" by his opponents? Look at the title: America Alone. Its meaning is obvious, but concerning what? When the Soviet Union fell, America was left standing as the sole super power in the world. But that is not the meaning of America Alone. However, do you remember what Nikita Kruschchev said? America would fall from within, without one shot fired. America would destroy herself through societal softness and the Soviets would walk in and take over.

Steyn states that Muslims have adopted this concept of a country falling from within, beginning in Europe. Through immigration, Muslims are establishing themselves as a stronghold. Belgium, Sweden, England, Denmark, the Netherlands, and France are on their way to becoming majority Muslim and geo-political. In fact, he says, Eurotopia is fast becoming "Eurabia."

Three events are rapidly leading to Eurabia:
1. Demographic decline
2. The unsustainability of the advanced Western social-democratic state
3. Civilizational exhaustion

Do you remember years ago forecasters urged population control? Europe heeded this warning and now faces two factors that will change it drastically: its population is aging and couples are not reproducing themselves. According to Steyn, these are the statistics of the population under the age of 15: Spain and Germany--14%, United Kingdom--18%, the United States--21%. On the other hand Saudi Arabia's 15 and under is 39%, Pakistan--40%, and Yemen--47%.

Who is reproducing themselves: the US at 2.1 babies per couple, [...] at 7.46, Mali at 7.42, Somalia at 6.76, Afghanistan at 6.69, Ireland at 1.9, New Zealand at 2.11. There are Germany and Austria at 1.3, Russia and Italy at 1.2, and Spain at 1.1. Those with birthrates over 2 are Muslim; those under Caucasian Christian.

With an aging population and declining birthrate and a swelling benefits package supplied by the government, who will pay for this social welfare? Answer: incoming immigrants with high birthrates.

Therein, Steyn says, lies the problem. While people of Europe have abandoned their churches and religious beliefs, Islam immigrants bring with them "a religion, and an explicitly political one." In fact, if a European wants to marry a Muslim, he must convert, or as they call it, revert. Muslims believe that everyone is born Muslim--he/she must find that calling. And no one may leave the religion.

How pervasive are Islam and Muslims in Europe? "Go to any children's store in Amsterdam or Marseilles or Vienna or Stockholm. Look at women in headscarves or full abaya. That's the future" (21).

Remember the Kruschkrev comment? This is what Col. Gaddafi once said: "There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe--without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades" (36) Steyn gives example after example of how Islamists are taking over, first neighborhoods, then schools, then city governments, then the country.

For example, in 2003, Abdurahman Alamoudi, helped devise a three-week course taught in California's public schools in which students adopted Muslim names, wore Islamic garb, memorized suras from the Koran, recited prayers and so on. Another place Islamists are targeting is the prison population in America, Australia, and Western Europe, seeking reverts. Where there is a religious void as in prisons and Europe, Muslims seek to fill the void with a rigorous religion.

Steyn quotes Imam Zaid Shakit as wanting the United States to become Muslim; however, he sees it as a country with Muslim civil institutions, sharia, a complete way of life. As a country's population dies out and immigrants replace them, a nation's collective past also dies and is replaced with a new.

In France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Sweden, riots over equal rights have disturbed traditional peace. Women feel safer walking neighborhoods in Muslim garb in order to be left alone by Muslim men. When Muslims take over, they take the land and distribute it to Muslims, creating reverts out of the native people. Because the United States doesn't take land, Muslims consider the US weak and defeatable. As Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore said in 2004, " The central issue is America's credibility and wil to prevail" (176).

Steyn concludes in outlining America's exceptional nature and how it can prevent Muslim reversion of an entire country. It is not too late! Reading this book can provide invaluable information necessary for action.

In the process of reading this book, I met a military family just back from England. The wife verified everything Steyn says in this book. She says England is quickly becoming Muslim and that violence is becoming common. They were very glad to leave when they did.

Mark Steyn, like P.J. O'Rourke, is an extraordinarily insightful and witty communicator who is not only an artist in the tapestry he weaves with words, but who has keen and piercing discernment into one of the most pressing issues of our time: the shockingly rapid and rabid advance of virulent violence in the name of religion.

Thankfully, unlike many lily-livered and wrong-headed authors of today, Steyn does not grant moral equivalency between faiths that promote peace and love, with faiths that promote hatred and terror. Steyn tells it like it is, and focuses on the real, specific threat to us all: the spread of Islamist extremism (differentiated from peace-loving Muslims). This aggressive terror movement quite literally threatens the very existence of Western Civilization and the freedoms of every single person reading this review.

Having been to Europe on several occasions, including recently, I can say that Steyn's observations about the encroaching threat are right on. Recently, French law enforcement officials have gone so far as to call for help, noting that what Islamist extremists and hoodlums are waging against them in France is an actual intifada. The Netherlands, also overwhelmed with angry immigrants who refuse to assimilate, is likewise facing an epic clash of cultures. In the UK, key cities are on the brink of becoming majority Muslim--a frightening percentage of whom believe that terrorism is a viable, moral option.

Could this happen in America? In fact, the seeds have already been planted. If you have been unaware or dismissive of this fact, then you absolutely must get Steyn's book and read it immediately.

This is not a book about partisanship. Whether one is a "conservative" or a "liberal," if you love America; if you love your family; if you love freedom...you owe it to yourself and your loved ones to get informed and get involved.

This is not a book of racism or bigotry. Steyn does not attack an ethnic group or, specifically, those who practice the Muslim faith. In fact, he sheds light on why Islamist extremism is the greatest danger to Muslims in the world today. (It should be noted that more Muslims and Arabs have been killed and persecuted and enslaved by Islamofacism than any other force.)

Some commentators and comedians casually dismiss or minimize the threat that we all face. For those of us who are Baby Boomers and Xers, it is perhaps deeply ingrained into our nature to pooh-pooh any talk of menace or serious threats to our way of life; this faulty mindset is born out of decades of complacency and relative peace. What is looming on the horizon is simply inconceivable to many. But then again, so was Pearl Harbor. And so was 9/11.

For the sake of the world--including moderate Muslims--it is vital that America (and all of the virtues for which it stands) wins in this struggle. It's high time to refute all of the self-loathing America-hating, traitorous professors and pundits here in this country, and the Euro-weenie hand-wringers on foreign shores, who blame the USA for all of the ills on the planet. Say it loud and clear: the USA has been an overwhelmingly postive force for good in this world, and it's survival is crucial for the prosperity of many nations and peoples.

War has been declared and waged against us; we ignore it at our own peril.

Steyn's latest book is one of about 15 or 20 in the new genre I'll call "WTF Is Happening To The World". Many of the books in this genre (Londonistan, While Europe Slept, Eurabia, all of the Spencer books, etc.) are extremely well written and well researched. Having read all of them, I was kind of wondering what was left to say.

Steyn's book does not present brand-new groundbreaking material, insofar as other authors in the genre discuss similar themes. The world is in serious trouble. Europe is toast. Islam is on the march, energized and confident. Etc. However, Steyn's book is unique in pulling it ALL together. This would be the one to read if you have time (or patience) for just one book on the Islamic threat. Steyn presents a well-reasoned argument that America is basically the last holdout or redoubt of the West, with Europe having basically been taken over, demographically if not yet militarily.

Steyn is, as others have noted here, humorous and witty. However, I find all the reviews of the book as "hilarious" (here and elsewhere) a bit odd, as if we're discussing the new season of South Park. There's nothing hillarious about Steyn's focus, which is, to put it simply, that Islam is conquering the western world by immigrating in, then procreating like rabbits, while entirely failing to integrate and living in separate ghettos, insisting that their new home countries adopt to their religious demands and intolerance, and recently, exerting the influence that comes from having 20-30-40 % of the under-25 population. What is hillarious about that? It's a poor choice of words. Steyn is extremely witty, clever and insightful - that's more than enough without having to present him as the new act on Comedy Central.

There are a lot of people in deep denial about the nature of the Islamic challenge across the world - from the 9/11 Truth morons to the many, many, many people, particularly in Europe but here too, who just want to cave and basically sue for peace rather than engage in this tiring fight for our survival as a culture. Unfortunately, no one book is going to wake these people up from their moral comas. However, Steyn usefully contributes to a body of knowledge and argument that, hopefully, over time will exert some influence and help people wake up.

In sum, I found this book not "hilarious" and rip roaringly funny, but rather, intelligent, witty, insightful, and important. It is currently the best book out there in explaining the complex, global nature of what is euphamistically called "The War On Terror" but is really a war for our survival against motivated, confident, and aggressive Islamists.

5 stars. Best-in-class book.

Mark Steyn is an astute observer of today's geopolitical scene, especially the rising tide of Muslim fundamentalism in Europe. This is a sober subject with ominous implications for the free world. Yet Steyn consistently leavens his commentaries with razor-sharp wit and trenchant one-liners.

On Russia's abominable 70% abortion rate: "Russian women are voting with their fetuses."

On opinion polls showing 49% of Egyptians believe the Mossad is responsible for a recent terrorist resort-hotel bombing: "Denial is more than a river in Egypt."

How about this anecdote (my favorite): In the fall of 2003, a mass panic swept Sudan. Foreigners were shaking hands with Sudanese men, causing them to lose their masculinity. One merchant reported that a west African entered his store and shook his hand powerfully until he felt his [male organ] melt into his body. "I know the feeling," Steyn writes. "The same thing happened to me when I shook hands with Senator Clinton."

Humor aside, Steyn raises serious questions about the West's willingness to confront virulent Muslim fundamentalism (on display once again with the reaction to Pope Benedict's recent comments) and capacity to prevail in the "long war."

This book is not only informative, but as entertaining a read as I've seen in quite some time. You will laugh out loud -- right before you mourn what's happening to our beloved country. For example, he points out how we demand total choice on our cable and satellite dish offerings, but are willing to let the government make our choices for us on far more critical issues such as on raising our children (Connecticut is proposing taxpayer supported universal pre-school -- get 'em while they're young), caring for our inconvenient elderly parents so we won't need to, and soon to assume decisions affecting our very life, should we go to a single payer health care system. If you listened to the last Democratic Presidential debate, we aren't far from that. I can hardly wait until we, too, will be able to wait 6 months for an MRI? Won't it be cool when everyone has affordable medical coverage, but when we need bypass surgery, the government will say to us, "Geez, you're 65. We can't do bypass surgery on old geezers like you, but we'll pay to plop your sorry butt in a nursing home until you do us the favor of expiring." That's no joke -- it happened to my business partner's Canadian father several years back. He has done the system the favor of expiring. Now, that's progress!



Steyn provocatively addresses the issue of political correctness, as it relates to a number of societal issues. He demonstrates how the press has become a tool in keeping us useful idiots "informed." Manipulated would be a better word, in my opinion.



I can only hope we wake up before our very way of life is no longer an option. We are not far from it with Medicare and Social Security on the brink of bankrupting the country, even as politicians devise new ways to spend our hard-earned money to buy votes.



This book should be required reading for every politician, teacher, preacher, and citizen. Steyn is a demographer extraordinaire, and gives us the big picture on precisely how unsustainable social programs, low birth rates, and "feel good" political correctness combine to destroy societies and the common values that bind us together as a nation.



Read it -- you'll love it!

"America Alone" is an apocalyptic book of sorts that bases its pessimistic predictions not on religious dogma specifically but on the cold, hard facts of the present world in which we live. European nations have some of the lowest birth rates in the world- far below the necessary number of births per woman necessary to sustain the population. European nations (and Canada) have a large number of social programs that will be increasingly difficult to fund in the future as the native population dries up. And the influence of Muslims continues to grow in these countries each day as the nations of Europe continue to accept more and more Muslim immigrants into their borders.

The problems faced by the Western world, according to the book, have these core issues to deal with and finding a quick cure will not be easy. According to this writing, the root of the problem is Western Europe's growing welfare state- a system that redistributes wealth to the detriment of the overall society. Unemployment rates in these countries are very high by American standards and young people no longer want to have children. This, combined with the desire to be culturally sensitive, has led these nations to accept large numbers of Muslims into their ranks, leading to a large percentage increase in the overall Muslim population.

Reading a politically and socially motivated book like this one often leaves the reader wondering about the true motives of the author. Many writers voice strong, ideologically based, subjective opinions that are intended to influence the reader in a specific direction. Other books have a stronger basis that is grounded in fact. Does "America Alone" fit into the latter group? Or, can it be easily dismissed as a bunch of over-the-top alarmist hype?

Starting with the concern about the shrinking populations of native Europeans, what is stated in this part of the book is very true: European nations, as a whole, have very low birth rates and over time, they will see their native populations cut down to size. There is nothing ideological or subjective about this. If the low birth rates do not reverse themselves very soon, the populations will slowly decline until the natives become a minority in their own lands. The book is also correct when it points out the economic problems these nations will face as they try to pay for their massive state- funded welfare system. The only way to have enough workers paying into the system in a country with a low birth rate is to admit more immigrants. And, more than likely, these immigrants will come from the Middle East, bringing their intolerant brand of religion with them. It is highly unlikely that they will want to assimilate into the local culture. They will instead convert the nation to one whose laws are determined by Islamic code. Again, this is not alarmist fanaticism; it is a very likely scenario that will play out if something isn't done to curb the growth of Islamic influence and to increase the declining populations. It could take a very long time, but it is easy to see that the trends are pointing in this direction.

The author of this book feels the Islamic world influence is a grave threat to freedom and our way of life and his fear extends to the United States also. However, here in the USA, the threat is not nearly as bad because our political system, economic system, and lifestyle are in direct conflict with a totalitarian system like that found in the more radical Islamic nations, making a conversion to an Islamic theocracy unlikely in the near future. But the threat is still real and the author feels that Americans should take whatever steps necessary to preserve their culture and liberty. Even though the chances are slim that an Islamic theocracy would take over the U.S. government, the author feels this is something we should take no chances with. We should do whatever we can to make sure this scenario never plays out.

How does the author suggest that we accomplish this task and defeat what he refers to as the "Virus of Islam"? Well, he lists several specific steps to take and most people can at least agree with them in theory. For example, he feels we should strongly support women's rights in the Muslim world. He also feels that we should support political and economic freedom in all Muslim nations; counter the funding of Islamic organizations in the United States and in other western nations; Create a special corps to wage an ideological war; etc. These are good, solid ways to counter the influence and they are actions that most people can agree. However, the book loses me on some of its other points. Among its stated plan of action, the book includes tactics like ending the Iranian regime by force and engaging in military strikes whenever the opportunity arises. This endorsement of military engagements will be met with certain objections by many readers, and this is especially true of the author's apparent desire to strike "whenever the opportunity presents itself", which, I understand to mean striking out even when there is no direct threat (Bush doctrine- style, preemptive attacks). Other points the book makes seem equally questionable, like the assertion that Americans spend too much time in school. According to the author, we should be able to learn and absorb the equivalent of a Bachelor's Degree in much less time than it currently takes and doing so would encourage young people to marry and have kids at a younger age and more frequently, thus eliminating the problem caused by lower birth rates. Hmmm...I can see his point, but I cannot imagine ordinary people taking this seriously.

Overall, America Alone is a good book with an important message about the transformation of Europe and the other nations of the Western world and what needs to be done to reverse this trend toward the new "Dark Ages". Most of it is written with good intentions and it does contain many factual assertions about the gloomy economic picture in Europe. Some of Steyn's solutions to a world plagued by Islamic fanaticism are questionable at best but other things he says make good sense, leading to my rating of this book as three stars and a recommendation. A good number of readers will not agree with everything Steyn says (myself included) but there is enough sensible material here to make the book worth a look.

With his trademark wit and wisdom, Mark Steyn provides important insights into the Radical Islamic movement/invasion of Western Civilization. As Mr. Steyn points out the demographics of Europe are rapidly changing in an overall bloodless fashion through high Muslim birthrates. Steyn illustrates the implications this brings to Western Culture or as radical fundamentalists put it, "The Great Satan."

What is eye-opening about this treatise is how the West seems to be in a slumber, going out of its way to accomodate its enemies despite said enemies' statements regarding their intent of the destruction of Western Civilization. Steyn writes that we do so at our peril.

"America Alone" is one of the most important books to come out in a long time. Whether you are Conservative or Liberal, Republican or Democrat pick up this truly salient read.

With acerbic wit, tongue-in-cheek humor, extremely readable thoughts and comments: altogether Mark Steyn has put together a stunning book that is a magnificent winner by any and all standards.

The content of the book is extraordinary, and extraordinarily necessary. As some reviewers have written, we are in this all together and we need to act with a great deal of consort if we are not going to lose this War here in America.

In this relatively short tome, Mark Steyn covers a lot of ground. While he correctly identifies the problem as beginning with I and ending with SLAM, the other problem he also identifies is the dependency culture that, unfortunately, America did, somewhat unwittingly, help create; that has been on the rise in Europe since the middle 1800s and in America to a, fortunately, lesser extent. As many of us believe, the problem of the enemy within, stated so circumspectly by Mr. Steyn, are those amongst us that believe that all cultures are equal with no knowledge or study to justify their opinion.

The aspect that Mr. Steyn did not cover is how it is the basic teachings in the Holy Qur'an and the statements by the Prophet Muhammad (the Hadith), and how they have been implemented literally, as they were intended to be, that are the true root cause of the problem. Throughout history, Islam has been the single bloodiest political system that has ever existed on the earth. including starting out in a manner similar to Genghis Khan, and continuing on as such for 150 years, and then, beyond that, killing almost 100 million Hindus in several attempted conquests of India.

To cover that in such a short book would be difficult, and Mark Steyn has alluded to that without going into the extensive detail and the additional chapters that that would entail.

We can all hope that Europe has not already surrendered to radical Islam, as the socialists and leaders there, including Tony Blair, seem to have done.

Mark Steyn also did not go into the detail of the enormous problems we have with our own Islamists in this country, such as the 100,000 members of CAIR, who, as their leaders have stated, want the USA to be an Islamic country: that doesn't come without Sharia law. Mr. Steyn does cover a little bit about Sharia law, but the truly horrid manner in which Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc have all lived in under this execrebly set of rules is not covered in great enough detail. The 7,000 to 10,000 active Hezbollah supporters in Dearbornistan, MI, plus the likely 100,000 additional passive Hezbollah supporters is also not mentioned.

Mr. Steyn has some recommendations in the concluding chapter. His recommendation, like many, is that Islam must reform itself internally, and that there are some actions which need to be taken to assist that. The actions to be taken are all good and should be tried, but the belief that Muslims can reform Islam is a misguided belief that has no basis in reality, for in order to reform Islam the basic documents, their Bible-the Holy Qur'an, and the statements, teachings, and actions implementing that in regards to the Prophet Muhammad and his statements and actions, plus the interpretations of those documents and statements for the last 1384 years would all need to refute and deny what Islam teaches, which is to take those statements literally as the final and perfect revelation of God (Allah). In effect, Muslims must deny their own religion for them to reform it. That's a Catch 22 of unbelievable proportions. Perhaps Mark Steyn just wanted to not have all the death threats coming into him, his family, and his coworkers if he had gone into that part of the problem in his book.

That Islam is cowing Americans into not be able to speak openly in regards to Islam and the Prophet is already occurring, as I have had a death threat aimed at me, and folks such as Robert Spencer live in unknown locations for personal safety reasons. This is what America has come to.

A series of questions that Mark Steyn needs to include in his next book are: why are Muslims, if Islam is such a wonderful and attractive religion, unwilling to have an open and honest discussion, without threats of violence, of the precepts, basic documents, and beliefs of Islam, and why the knowledge of the history of the expansion of Islam in a documentably accurate manner is not allowed for public consumption, lest there be global riots? Why, even as espoused by American Muslims, is their sugar coated version the only version that is allowed to be disseminated and discussed publicly?

Mark also doesn't go into detail about what happens after America is Alone. Will Islamist England, France, and Russia threaten America with their nuclear weapons, for since the leaders of Iran have stated they are willing to lose half their population to destroy Israel, what will the Islamists of Europe say? Will Islamist Canada send missiles, nuclear or otherwise, over our 4,000 mile border? Will the liberal dependency culture that is destroying Europe dominate in the USA and force us to surrender to the nuclear blackmail rather than fight? Will just a few US cities get nuked before we surrender? Will there be a second Civil War between the multiculturists that support the Islamofascists plus the Libertarians on the far right against those in America that still believe in America that Mark Steyn lauds in his book?

Overall, accolades to Mark Steyn for an excellent book that needs to be written over and over again by every author that believes in America, democracy of the free, freedom, and the beliefs that our forefathers founded this nation with, but no one will excel with such a readable and cogent work as Mark Steyn has done.

A couple of years ago an acquaintance of mine and her daughter went on a trip to England. While riding on a train, the two happened to sit across from a gentlemen with his family. This gentleman, heralding from the mid-East, said to her in passing that "soon this country will be ours." The statement was made as a boast, but without rancor or histrionics. It was simply presented as a fact, one that some might find disagreeable, but one which would also be dangerous to ignore.

I leave the religious persuasion of the person who made the statement as an exercise for the reader.

"America Alone" is astonishing, frightening, a once a generation book, one that provides a radically different view of the future that only in retrospect (i.e., post 9/11) seems understandable. Once grasped, the near-term the implications are clear enough, Steyn's logic and arithmetic being impeccable, but the implications far-term are far from being understood. Perhaps mercifully so. In presenting a vision of the future utterly original and distinct from what we had come to expect, I know of no other book comparable to it -- with the possible exception of Eric Drexler's "Engines of Creation (1986)." A prime difference of course is in the nature and tone of the predictions. "Engines of Creation," even with the staggering technological dangers it laid out before the reader, was still a book of enormous promise. The elements presented (advanced artificial intelligence, unlimited energy, and assembler technology) in lesser degrees already lived together in nature more or less harmoniously: the human mind, nuclear energy, the complex biology of living organisms. The implication was that this emerging world, which would be firmly in place possibly a generation hence, could work in principle. And if it could be made to work, we would all be greatly better off for it. But Steyn's vision of the unstoppable collapse of the European welfare-states (collectively what he terms "EUtopia") into demographic doom is as bleak as it gets. Nothing good can come from this grimmest of fates, though as a warning as the "lead canoes go over the falls" (a Steyn image), it may have some value in enabling those farther back to save themselves.

And this too will happen within a generation.

I have been reading Steyn for three years now, so his thesis, as it has gradually emerged in articles and essays is familiar to me. Democratic welfare states are simply not sustainable, economically, politically, or socially. As their citizens become increasingly dependent upon state transfer payments (the drug metaphor is particularly apt), they give up on their future, stop reproducing, and within a few decades find themselves facing a demographic cliff. Familiar yes, but to see it all put together in book format is a shock. Freud spoke of the nasty man at the picnic; the picnic is now over. With this one book, Steyn has become the premier social and political commentator of our age. No one else comes close. The world of commentary, opinion, and moral clarity is now Steyn plus debris.


Yes, he is a very funny writer, but the humor in "America Alone" is gallows wit.

To spell out the implications: by the middle of the next decade, the century long suicide of Europe that began with WWI will effectively be complete. Though there will be pockets of resistance, possibly strong in Eastern Europe, the fate of Western Europe (England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, etc.), will be sealed. Many, perhaps most, of the young (though some will "revert") will have fled. So too, the rich, the formerly powerful, plus top scientists, technicians, and misc. intellectuals.

The fate of those not in the aforementioned categories, i.e. the aging populations of Europe utterly dependent upon the welfare state and unable or unwilling to immigrate, is best passed over in silence.

I'm going to take a risk here and give two visual metaphors, if you will, that might help in grasping the enormity of what Steyn is describing.

One of my favorite movie guilty pleasures, and a remarkable piece of visionary propaganda, is "Red Dawn" (1984). The film presents a future where Europe especially is indifferent to America's fate and much of the world has turned militarily against us. The chilling words concluding the prologue are: "America stands alone." I have been haunted by that phrase since I first saw the film, and with some minor alterations, surprisingly few actually, this film is close to the world Steyn sees as coming. In the movie, though at enormous cost, America is able to summon the will to fight back and ultimately defeat its enemies. But Steyn wonders if America can do so in the real world, or has it gone down the "EUtopian" road too far itself to turn back? The question remains an open one.

Another movie, one that Steyn himself recommends (and as a movie critic, he recommends very few films), also serves as a visual commentary to the book's thesis: that film is "Serenity" (2005). The central mystery of "Serenity" is the terrible secret of the colony world "Miranda." The Alliance, which is attempting to completely control all colony planets is determined that nobody finds out what went wrong on Miranda, which was supposed to be a model for all the others. Captain Reynolds and the crew of the Starship Serenity are equally "determined to find out what `Miranda' is and what the Alliance is hiding." What they find is a literally drugged world, planned to be a utopia to be sure, but which has gone more wrong than anyone could have imagined. With its population split into two, one part has given up and died or been murdered. The other part has become the cannibalistic, death-lusting "Reavers," who will destroy anyone in their path.

So read the book, think about it, and talk with those willing to discuss the end of the world as we know it.