Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West [Hardcover]

Mark Steyn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 2009

Roaming from America to Europe to Australia, Lights Out is a trenchant examination of the tensions between a resurgent Islam and a fainthearted west - and of the implications for liberty in the years ahead.

In 2007, the Canadian Islamic Congress brought three suits against Maclean s, Canada s biggest-selling newsweekly, for running an excerpt from Steyn s bestselling book America Alone, plus other flagrantly Islamophobic columns by the author. A year later the CIC had lost all its cases and Steyn had become a poster boy for a worldwide phenomenon - the collision between Islam, on the one hand, and, on the other, western notions of free speech, liberty and pluralism.

In this book, Steyn republishes all the essays the western world's new thought police attempted to criminalize, along with new material responding to his accusers. Covering other crises from the Danish cartoons to the Salman Rushdie fatwa, he also takes a stand against the erosion of free speech, and the advance of a creeping totalitarian "multiculturalism"; and he considers the broader relationship between Islam and the west in a time of unprecedented demographic transformation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mark Steyn is the author of America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller in the United States and a Number One bestseller in Canada, where it was the subject of three separate complaints to the country's many "human rights" commissions. Steyn is also National Review's Happy Warrior; a contributing editor to Canada's bestselling newsweekly, Maclean's; an internationally syndicated columnist; a visiting fellow at Hillsdale College; and a popular guest host of some of the highest-rated radio and TV talk shows.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 322 pages
• Publisher: Stockade Books; 1St Edition edition (April 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0973157054
• ISBN-13: 978-0973157055
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #151,457 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Steyn is the author of America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, a New York Times bestseller in the United States and a Number One bestseller in Canada, where it was the subject of three separate complaints to the country's many 'human rights' commissions. Steyn is also National Review's Happy Warrior; a contributing editor to Canada's bestselling newsweekly, Maclean's; an internationally syndicated columnist; a visiting fellow at Hillsdale College; and a popular guest host of some of the highest-rated radio and TV talk shows.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

175 of 180 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Do you appreciate freedom of speech? Read Lights Out. April 25, 2009

By J. Hart

Format:Hardcover

In "Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech And The Twilight Of The West," Mark Steyn details his recent misadventures with Canada's laughable "Human Rights" Commissions. After Maclean's, a Canadian news weekly, printed an excerpt from Steyn's America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, the Canadian Islamic Congress sued Maclean's for their "flagrant Islamophobia," demanding space in the privately owned magazine to print a response. Two of three Commissions agreed to hear the case, despite the plaintiff's arguments being written by five of Canada's least literate law school students.

Lights Out is primarily a compilation of Steyn articles from the past several years, with a fair amount of new commentary related to the "human rights" trials. The Maclean's articles cited as justification for legal action by the plaintiff are reprinted in full, followed by the plaintiff's complaints, followed by Steyn's concise destruction of said complaints. Far from the obnoxious partisan your average multiculti-cultist dismisses him as, Steyn relates international headlines and demographic stats in a way that's thoughtful, worrying, and humorous. There are Muslim populations in Western countries that are hostile to Western culture and laws. These populations are growing rapidly, while native birth rates hover at unsustainable levels. Are these issues we're allowed to discuss?

Steyn's stated purpose is repeal of the Canadian law that created the freedom-suppressing Human Rights Commissions. An ambitious goal, to be sure, but one that will gain momentum after a few hundred thousand Canadians have read Lights Out. If you care about free speech, order this book.

135 of 138 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Sharply funny and yet a description of a true life nightmare June 18, 2009

By Craig Matteson HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

I wish I could believe that there was no cultural clash between the politically minded Muslims and the West. Or that the large numbers of Muslims immigrating into Europe, Canada, America and elsewhere were no different than the large numbers of Irish and Italians a century or more ago. But what I see with my own eyes tells me this is different. And this very valuable book by Mark Steyn can show you why, too. And it will show you why the left-wing multicultural movement is aiding and abetting the cultural suicide the West seems to want. You may have heard the saying that a mind can be so open that you brain falls out. Well, we see that characteristic being exhibited in far too many crumbling pillars of the Western tradition and those trying to help bring them down. To replace them with what? Darkness? Fantasy?

This is a collection of columns by Mark Steyn that chronicle his writings around the time that his boo, "America Alone" was in the news. Part of it was reprinted in "Macleans", an important Canadian magazine. Well, it turns out that Canada has a Human Rights Commission who used Section 13 in their Canadian Human Rights Code to go after anyone who dared speak their mind on issues that gave offense to groups the commission favors. What is particularly awful is that those accused never have the benefits of common law such as presumed innocence or the right to confront one's accuser. The Commission ALWAYS found those accused guilty. Unfortunately for them, Steyn and the publisher of "Macleans" decided to fight back.

The case was brought by Islamic activist Dr. Mohamed Elmasry who used three of his students to bring the charges. Steyn refers to this trio as the sock puppets since they said and did only what Elmasry put them up to doing. The first part of the book reprints the articles they claimed offended them, their claims about the offenses, and Steyn's reply. I found much of it very funny in a horrifying and exasperating kind of way. Sort of like a Kafka tale done by the Three Stooges.

Steyn's writings in this book address much more, though. You will get his sharp and witty attacks on the UK trying the appeasement route with their growing Muslim population and their demands for a separate legal system. I liked Steyn's pointing out that the hope that if we retreat just one more time the other side will be satisfied and stop pushing for more is folly.

I can't recount the whole of the book here. But I want you to read it. I think it is a terrific book on a vital subject. In any case, I like Steyn's writing and recounting of his travails in dealing with this Canadian Inquisition.

Strongly and fervently recommended.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

103 of 106 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The End of Free Speech? July 11, 2009

By Bonnie M. Parsley

Format:Hardcover

When reading Mark Steyn's latest book, "Lights Out" you cannot help but get the feeling that the western world has gone mad. We are our own worst enemies and if we lose our freedoms, and if our way of life is destroyed, it will be no ones fault but our own.

Steyn describes through his columns and other writings, his long battle with Canadian Human Rights Commissions in three different provinces in Canada. He was brought before the commission because of a law suit that claimed Steyn's book, America Alone incited Islamaphobia and hate. The publisher of the largest magazine in Canada was also included in the suit because they had printed an exert from Steyn's book. These so called arbiters at the CHRC decide what is permissible to say in a civilized society and what is not. Muslims in Canada have been helped by misguided Canadians to cause such economic troubles in both time and money, that even when the eventual suit is dismissed, the effect is to shut down any discussion of Islam, its culture, or anything to do with its religion.

Steyn is simply offering a clarion call for westerners to understand the threat posed by an Islamic cultural invasion into western society. When he quotes Imams hate speech, which is encouraging the deaths of infidels, it is Steyn who is accused of hate speech. The same thing is happening in Europe. When Geert Wilders made a documentary showing Imams preaching hate and giving direct quotes from the Koran that encourages murder, it is Wilders who has been accused of a hate crime in his own country, the Netherlands.

Western civilization is in great danger of extinction. In reality the threat is not so much from Islam as it is from carrying political correctness to ridiculous lengths. Multi-culturalism is being used to strip patriotism from our hearts. Liberals who say they care so much about minorities are using the law to help those who would abolish the law. We in the west are committing suicide with our feel good, self-righteous commissions and rulings. Once the Muslims take over in Europe, which if you read America Alone you know is coming, they will then move on the rest of the western world. We had better wake up before it is too late.

If you are concerned about free speech in the western world, and especially if you are not concerned, you will want to read this fascinating book.