The Camp of the Saints [Paperback]

Jean Raspail (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Social Contract Pr (December 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881780074
• ISBN-13: 978-1881780076
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (96 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #289,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

273 of 282 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Prophet as Leper July 31, 2000

By Lloyd A. Conway

Format:Paperback

This book is so politically incorrect that I admire Amazon.com for actually carrying it. Written in the early 1970s, this book looks beyond the cold war to a North-South confrontation in which European civilization is unilaterally morally disarmed. The thesis is simple: suppose a million starving people from the Ganges actually took Western rhetoric of compassion, explotiation, etc., to heart, and comandeered, en masse, shipping, with the intention of moving to the shores of France? (Raspail, of course, is French.) Would anyone stop them? The imagery employed is interesting. The title comes from Revelation, Chapter 20, and refers to the forces of evil laying seige to the camp of the saints, here meant to be the nations of the West. "The thousand years are over..." is chanted from Third World lips, harking to the millenial reign of Christ, as well as to the millenial domination of Europe over the globe. Raspail has the Vatican, World Council of Churches, and other organs of what he saw as Western liberal compassion try to feed the Armada, as it sails around the Cape. The bodies of their would-be benefactors are cast into the sea. The characters who oppose, with violence, the Armada are named with names like Constantine Drasages and Luke Notaras, namesakes of the last Byzantine Emperor and Admiral. They are portrayed as villans in the media; one of the more thoughtful leftists, fashionably in support of opening up France's shores, but cynical enough to see the potential results, reflects on the parallels between Byzantium's fate and that of the West. The author's point is that any who dare to say that 'white' civilization has a right to exist are branded racists and cast out of the pale of polite society. The narrative is set up as a flashback. The Armada is about to disgorge its human cargo in Provence as we begin. An old man, M. Calgues, awaits them, Mozart playing in the background, after setting what he expects to be his last supper among the living. From there, we go back to the beginning, in India, as a Western cleric preaches quasi-liberation theology to the masses. Along the way, as the news spreads over the world, we digress, looking at Manhattenites holing up in skyscrapers as the spectre of race riots beckon, and at Russian troops on the Manchurian border contemplating the human waves gathering to wash over them. The central question of the book is this: will the West (including Russia - more properly, the North), when (not if) confronted with de facto occupation of national territories by Third World people, coming to live, but not to assimilate, use violence to save itself? Is there left in Euro-American civilization a will to live that is strong enough to pull a trigger? The stark question is answered in one of two possible ways by the concluding chapter. This astringent book, whether you agree with Raspail's views or not, demands thoughtful attention to the questions posed. How will we deal with population/immagration issues? Is our culture and way of life worth fighting for? -Lloyd A. Conway

141 of 147 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Courageous and Prophetic Polemic of a Novel August 7, 2002

By Jamie MacTavish

Format:Paperback

Jean Raspail was already a distinguished travel writer and novelist when he put his reputation on the line with this one - He had a lot to lose. To his credit, Raspail pulls no punches and manages to say just about everything there is to say about the threat that Third World immigration poses to Western Civilization.
I had heard about this book, but decided to read it for the first time only after boat loads of Kurds landed on France's Mediterranean beaches a couple of years ago. The sight of hundreds of ragged Kurds running through the streets of Cannes could have been a scene from the film version of this novel.
The story is about an invasion of France by boat loads of East Indians, and the small group of Frenchman who defend against them. But as Raspail notes in the Introduction, the story is a parable - A parable of the destructive Third World immigration in the West that has been going on since the latter part of the 20th Century, and the West's lack of will to resist it.
Immigration negatively impacts the environment, the economy, crime, and national security. This novel posits that it further threatens to destroy the relatively democratic, tolerant and civilized cultures of the West and the essential commonalities of the Western peoples. According to Raspail, the West "has no soul left" and "it is always the soul that wins the decisive battles."
To call the novel "racist" is unfair. Raspail includes an East Indian among the "Saints" who defend France, and portrays many White Frenchmen who welcome the invaders as their equals. The novel clearly states that being a Westerner is NOT a matter of race, but a "state of mind."

56 of 58 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Most Important Literary Work This Century August 1, 1999

By Cleve Blakemore

Format:Paperback

In simple prose and shockingly honest frank descriptions of his characters, Jean Raspail travels in the company of writers as great as Dostoyevsky and Chekov concerning a subject matter so sensitive it is forbidden to even discuss in public today. I feel the book makes an eloquent case for a conclusion so obvious that few of us can afford to ignore it like the Emperor's Clothes for much longer : given differentials in birth rates and immigration, the complete elimination of whites as a race is inevitable within a single century from now. Reading the book will make you understand why white people are treated as different by all the other races of the world and why they are considered as too dangerous to be permitted to develop the same racial cohesion and consciousness that is taken for granted by everyone else. Forget about political correctness ... this book will curl your toes inside of the first three chapters with startling insights and you'll recognize a lot of the personalities caricatured in the book in both the mainstream media and in the entertainment industries. At the turn of the century, white people were a mere 22% of the world population. Today, they are 8% and rapidly declining. For those interested in protecting endangered species, look no further than this astonishing literary classic, excellently translated from the original french by Norman Shapiro. If you read one book this year, make it "The Camp of the Saints."