Product Description

Once a colossus dominating the globe, Europe today is a doddering convalescent. Sluggish economic growth, high unemployment, an addiction to expensive social welfare entitlements, a dwindling birth-rate among native Europeans, and most important, an increasing Islamic immigrant population chronically underemployed yet demographically prolific - all point to a future in which Europe will be transformed beyond recognition, a shrinking museum culture riddled with ever-expanding Islamist enclaves. "Decline and Fall" tells the story of this decline by focusing on the larger cultural dysfunctions behind the statistics. The abandonment of the Christian tradition that created the West's most cherished ideals - a radical secularism evident in Europe's indifference to God and church - created a vacuum of belief into which many pseudo-religions have poured. Scientism, fascism, communism, environmentalism, multiculturalism, sheer hedonism - all have attempted and failed, sometimes bloodily, to provide Europeans with an alternative to Christianity that can show them what is worth living and dying for. Meanwhile a resurgent Islam, feeding off the economic and cultural marginalization of European Muslims, knows all too well not just what is worth dying for, but what is worth killing for. Crippled by fashionable self-loathing and fantasies of multicultural inclusiveness, Europeans have met this threat with capitulation instead of strength, appeasement and apologies instead of the demand that immigrants assimilate. As "Decline and Fall" shows, Europe's solution to these ills - a larger and more powerful European Union - simply exacerbates the problems, for the EU cannot address the absence of a unifying belief that can spur Europe even to defend itself, let alone to recover its lost grandeur. As these problems worsen, Europe will face an unappetizing choice between two somber destinies: a violent nationalistic or nativist reaction, or, more likely, a long descent into cultural senescence and slow-motion suicide.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #314411 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 300 pages

Customer Reviews

European century? Or Europe's farewell?
This book details what the author sees as Europe's decline. He argues that this is happening for a variety of reasons. These reasons are slow acting rather than dramatic. In other words, Europe is dying a slow lingering death, rather similar to a car running on a flat tire until it finally gives up and stops.

The author argues that the key element in Europe's decline is the collapse in religious faith, and its replacement with radical socialist central planning and militant secularism. The author argues that with Christianity dethroned in Europe, the vacuum was filled with radical socialism, which taught that there was/is no absolute truth or absolute standards. This led to a collapse in cultural confidence. It also led to a decline in democracy and local initiatives, as all power was concentrated in a small number of "experts'" hands in Brussels.

The book also talks about how "Eurabia" is rising, thanks to this inability of Europeans to stand up for their culture assertively against Islamic mass immigration and radical Islam, and the refusal of their political "elites" to address their concerns, which they scoff at as "populism" and "racism". With demographic changes taking place in Europe, this problem will only get worse.

All in all the book is an excellent read for anyone concerned about Europe's future. It is also a useful alternative view point to the pro-EU rave reviews some authors are writing. It would be useful for the reader to compare this title to "Why Europe will run the 21st Century" by Mark Leonard, and then decide for themselves which is the more likely outcome - a New European century, or the final scene on the global stage for Western man before he cedes world leadership to someone else.

Dystopia deconstructed
Decline and Fall is a valuable addition to the growing corpus of literature on the continent's problems and uncertain future. Recommended titles include the entertaining and witty but not unserious Menace in Europe by Claire Berlinski, the mostly disturbing While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer and the melancholy The Last Days of Europe by Walter Laqueur.

What constitutes Europe? Besides the 25 countries of the EU and those awaiting membership, it also includes non-members like Switzerland and Norway. For Thornton, the idea of Europe represents a set of values and beliefs or a particular world-view that broadly defines the West in general. He examines the specific nature of the European model, one that is perceived in certain circles as more humane and sophisticated than that of the Anglosphere. Then the evidence of Europe's accelerating decline and its causes are discussed.

The welfare state, accepted across the political spectrum with almost complete unanimity, has resulted in disappointing economic growth rates and perpetually high unemployment. The birthrate of native Europeans is in steep decline whilst there are large unassimilated immigrant communities suffering from mass unemployment resulting in huge welfare dependence. These people are alienated from, even hostile to, their host countries.

Europe's decline proceeded in stages beginning with the collapse of faith, followed by the disasters caused by Christianity's secular Salvationist substitutes like nationalism, socialism, communism, fascism and more recently the plagues of environmentalism and multiculturalism that have undermined its confidence. In Icarus Fallen and The Unlearnt Lessons of the Twentieth Century the perceptive French philosopher Chantal Delsol considers moral relativism - the rejection of all absolutes - as a form of nihilism that resulted from profound disillusionment with ideology. A newly resurgent Islam exploits this weakness and there is nothing to counteract the process.

The continent's dependence on oil imports coupled with its lack of a coherent belief system revived its long tradition of appeasement in the face of threats. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the subsequent oil blackmail a turning point in foreign policy occurred when countries like France shifted away from Israel to the Arab side as documented in Eurabia by Bat Ye'or. If antisemitism is a reliable measure of a society's mental health, Europe is seriously unwell. Anti-Zionism is rampant and barely distinguishable from antisemitism amongst the political and media elites.

Fanatically secular, these elites refuse to acknowledge the continent's Christian heritage, a significant spiritual bond between all member states. As the EU expands so does the Eurocracy. The EU power structure is not democratic at all and notoriously out of touch with ordinary citizens. As the continent loses ground to rapidly growing economies like those of India and China and living standards decline, dissatisfaction will rise. It is likely that the assault upon freedom of the press will intensify with the smoldering unrest amongst the immigrant communities flaring up more frequently.

Owing to the habit of consensus-seeking by the major parties of the centre left & centre right, the discontent of native Europeans is expressed by previously unthinkable levels of support for far-right movements in many countries. In their disdain for real democracy, the smug elites have been ignoring the danger signs. It's clear that sooner or later something must give.

A combination of external threats, declining living standards and internal unrest may lead to drastic changes. This scenario is not unlikely as there are indications of Russia seeking an alliance or cartel with oil and gas producers to put the squeeze on Europe while it is already buying aggressively into strategic European companies. Not found in the book, the following scenario is just speculation:

If these accumulating problems are exacerbated by major terror attacks, native Europeans will look elsewhere for leadership. A climate of fear will be conducive to spiritual revival in the form of a dramatic return to their historical faith, Constantine Christianity. A charismatic leader in that tradition who inspires confidence will signal the end of the Brussels bureaucracy, leading Europe towards a different kind of unity, one that may be based on faith.