America's Thirty Years War: Who Is Winning? [Hardcover]

Balint Vazsonyi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 1998

Is America on a slow-motion trip toward socialism even as much of the rest of the world moves away from it? Hungarian-born historian and world-renowned concert pianist Balint Vazsonyi knows first-hand what it means to live under an authoritarian regime and makes a powerful case that America is going down the same road.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Every day," Balint Vazsonyi cautions, "serious persons tell us that 'communism has lost,' 'socialism has collapsed,' 'conservatism is taking over America.' Each of these is an inaccurate assumption, or the product of wishful thinking." Despite the collapse of the Soviet bloc, he argues, democracy's victory is unclear, because since the 1960s Americans have increasingly abandoned the basic principles--"the rule of law, individual rights, guaranteed property, and a common American identity"--on which the United States was founded.

In America's 30 Years War, Vazsonyi--a concert pianist and political commentator who arrived in the United States in 1959, fleeing his native Hungary after the failed revolt against Soviet occupation--elaborates upon his distinction between the "Anglo-American" principles of liberty he finds in the Founding Fathers' intentions and the "Franco-Germanic" social theories that he claims, in their "search for social justice," lead inevitably to communism. The thesis is somewhat idiosyncratic, and could have used a sharper editor; readers may be frustrated to learn that five entire pages of the "Conclusions" section are drawn verbatim from one of the early chapters. --Ron Hogan

From Publishers Weekly

America's founding principles of liberty and the rule of law have eroded steadily over the last three decades, and the U.S. risks sliding into socialism, asserts Vazsonyi in this alarmist, sometimes strident polemic. This Hungarian-born historian and contributor to National Review and the Washington Times, offers the simplistic thesis that "Anglo-American" values of liberty, capitalism, democracy have waged an unremitting struggle against "Franco-Germanic" collectivist, utopian, statist tendencies. Vazsonyi, who fled his native country for the U.S. in 1959, does draw on firsthand experience to pinpoint similarities between Soviet communism and German nazism. But much of this tiresome conservative manifesto has a familiar ring: special-interest groups (feminists, blacks, homosexuals) dilute the concept of constitutionally derived individual freedoms; entitlement programs and government regulations threaten guarantees of private property; multiculturalism and Afrocentric curricula inventing a mythical past represent an assault on our common American identity. Vazsonyi exaggerates the influence of political correctness on campus ("Academic freedom has been all but driven out of the American university"), and his scattershot broadside sometimes borders on paranoia, as when he charges that various departments (including NEA, EPA, DOE) are commissariats serving a political agenda, or when he brands the environmentalist movement as a cover for "the de facto repeal of property rights, and the curtailment of freedom."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 285 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing (July 4, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895263548
• ISBN-13: 978-0895263544
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,561,531 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book Ever Written On America's Founding Principles, August 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: America's Thirty Years War: Who Is Winning? (Hardcover)

The most concise, well thought out book ever written on the founding principles of American Society. Mr. Vazsonyi provides THE thorough overview of the foundations that make America, the product of over 3000 years of Monotheism and Western Civilization, unique among all nations. A must read for all immigrants who want to know how to be American, for those who feel something is not quite right with America but can't put it in concrete terms, and all students in courses titled "Government," "Civics," and "American History.".

With the personal perspective and clarity only an immigrant is likely to have, Mr. Vazsonyi effectively demonstrates the two dominant concepts of government - Anglo American principles clearly delineated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the French German Welfare State founded in the blood of the French Revolution and refined in Bismark's Germany. Mr. Vazsonyi shows how Communism, socialism, liberalism, and all the other "ism's" that have developed in the last two hundred years are manifestations of a very old concept of governance which tries to create the perfect society envisioned by a self-appointed elite using a centralized government administering a command economy. American Society, by contrast, created a set of principles designed to enable each individual to develop himself according to the advantages his circumstances allowed. Adoption of these principles produced a society of responsible and moral individuals, who built a great nation from the grass roots, without the help of any central authority.

America's 30 Year's War asks: In light of the prosperity and freedom the system created by our founders provided us, do we really want to adopt the statist European model that, in its various forms, has lead to the elimination of entire populations and the destruction of private property, capital, and individual freedom? By its existence, America has prevented the ultimate triumph of the European Welfare State and its approach to governance. Impossible to defeat externally, American Founding Principles are being attacked internally; primarily by those in government, entertainment, academia, and media who want her to be just as equal as all other nations. The approach is to use feel good words and concepts such as multiculturualism, regulation, social justice (what exactly does that term mean, who defines it and when will we know when we've achieved it?) assaults on property rights, group identity and class warfare, to make people feel warm, fuzzy, and receptive about various causes and movements that pound away at America's Constitutional Foundations. These same methods, used in the author's native Hungry by both German and Russian occupiers in the 40's and 50's, are used to produce passionate, caring "Useful Idiots." Mr. Vazsonyi suggests a return to Constitutional Principles will ensure the rebirth of the Original American Revolution started in 1776 and stopped dead in its tracks by the political developments of the 1960s.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At 61 years of age this book helped focus on the issues!, July 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: America's Thirty Years War: Who Is Winning? (Hardcover)

In his book, "America's 30 Years War", Balint Vazonyi defines the two political philosophies that have been written about and tried over the centuries as the "Franco-Germanic" Way and the "Anglo-American" Way. He has defined them as such, because to call them "Left and Right" or "liberal and Conservative" or "Socialism/Communism and Free Enterprise" causes people to ignore the facts.Thomas Sowell writes about modern liberals ..."What they have that is more important to them than specific knowledge of what they are doing is a vision of the world and a vision of themselves. Their test of a belief is not how it fits the facts but how it fits their vision. That is what makes them so dangerous." ...This in my opinion exactly fits the "Franco-Germanic" way of thinking, which has been proven dangerous by such examples as National Socialism, Soviet Socialism and the People's Republic of China and all have killed millions of people.Now we have the DLC, clinton and most Democrats and even some Republicans, along with their NATO heads of state, promoting "The Third Way" or Global Socialism.In this final year before Election2000 this book will help those interested in the Future of Our Country to focus on important issues ...rto

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best book ever written on America's Founding Principles, August 20, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: America's Thirty Years War: Who Is Winning? (Hardcover)

The most concise, well thought out book ever written on the founding principles of American Society. Mr. Vazsonyi provides THE thorough overview of the foundations that make America, the product of over 3000 years of Monotheism and Western Civilization, unique among all nations. A must read for all immigrants who want to know how to be American, for those who feel something is not quite right with America but can't put it in concrete terms, and all students in courses titled "Government," "Civics," and "American History.".

With the personal perspective and clarity only an immigrant is likely to have, Mr. Vazsonyi effectively demonstrates the two dominant concepts of government - Anglo American principles clearly delineated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the French German Welfare State founded in the blood of the French Revolution and refined in Bismark's Germany. Mr. Vazsonyi shows how Communism, socialism, liberalism, and all the other "ism's" that have developed in the last two hundred years are manifestations of a very old concept of governance which tries to create the perfect society envisioned by a self-appointed elite using a centralized government administering a command economy. American Society, by contrast, created a set of principles designed to enable each individual to develop himself according to the advantages his circumstances allowed. Adoption of these principles produced a society of responsible and moral individuals, who built a great nation from the grass roots, without the help of any central authority.

America's 30 Year's War asks: In light of the prosperity and freedom the system created by our founders provided us, do we really want to adopt the statist European model that, in its various forms, has lead to the elimination of entire populations and the destruction of private property, capital, and individual freedom? By its existence, America has prevented the ultimate triumph of the European Welfare State and its approach to governance. Impossible to defeat externally, American Founding Principles are being attacked internally; primarily by those in government, entertainment, academia, and media who want her to be just as equal as all other nations. The approach is to use feel good words and concepts such as multiculturualism, regulation, social justice (what exactly does that term mean, who defines it and when will we know when we've achieved it?) assaults on property rights, group identity and class warfare, to make people feel warm, fuzzy, and receptive about various causes and movements that pound away at America's Constitutional Foundations. These same methods, used in the author's native Hungry by both German and Russian occupiers in the 40's and 50's, are used to produce passionate, caring "Useful Idiots." Mr. Vazsonyi suggests a return to Constitutional Principles will ensure the rebirth of the Original American Revolution started in 1776 and stopped dead in its tracks by the political developments of the 1960s.