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Title: While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within
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| While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Broadway Must read for any European; any American | Solely as a recitation of recent events in Europe that are under-reported in Europe and the US, this is a must read. Bawer is a journalist who spent quite a bit of time living, working, and traveling in Europe, and his insight into how real events are morphed as they find their way into the evening news or morning paper can help one make sense of what's going on in Europe, the UK, and the US.
This is not an academic excercise in "what's wrong with Europe". For that, perhaps try Weigel's "The Cube and the Cathedral".
| | While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Broadway Important issues raised -- atrocious social science | This book raises very important issues facing Europe and the West and its confrontation with forces of radical Islam. Having lived extensively in Denmark, I have seen first-hand the "culture clash" that is going on there.
But this book -- although certainly engaging -- is extremely disappointing and flawed.
First: argument by anecdote. Time after time after time the author uses some powerful anecdote, and then draws major sociological conclusions from it. But this is no way to make generalizations about the social world.
Second: watch how he perpetually uses the term "many." He will profile some random Muslim immigrant who is clearly exploiting the welfare system in Norway, and then the author will conclude by saying: "many others do this." But what exactly is "many"? 5? 15? 500? 5,000? And what percentage of Muslims cheats the system: 5%? 25%? The author never tells us because this actually isn't a work of social science at all. It is an anecdotal rant. The only "facts" are what the author happens to personally experience or think.
Third: the author often has a given conversation in a restaurant, and then extrapolates that what he hears is somehow indicative of what all Europeans think. Someone says something negative about America in France -- and viola, all French people feel this way. Someone says something anti-Jewish in Norway, and viola -- all Norwegians feel this way...etc..this method of argumentation is constant throughout the book. It is atrocious social science.
Fourth: the author argues that if Europeans elect left-wing political parties who are against the American occupation of Iraq, they somehow are "for the terrorists." Please. One can be both against the immoral and bogus occupation of Iraq and still hate the evil terrorists.
Fifth: the author's rosy-colored view of Americans is borderline absurd. He argues that Americans love immigrants and that "Americans can generally accept almost anyone from anywhere as a fellow American." Is this guy on crack? He clearly has no clue about the current anti-immigrant movement in America, nor the struggles that Asians and African Americans have endured for hundreds of years to be seen as truly and fully American. Well again, this is just a personal rant -- so facts don't really matter.
Granted, it is true that certain Muslims are homophobic, anti-Semitic, violent, intolerant of democracy and secular values -- and to deny or ignore this is indeed blind. But this book provides very little helpful insight or sociological analysis concerning these matters.
Ultimately, this is a very angry and provocative book written by a fearful author who had plenty of time to rant, but not enough time engage in reasonable, intelligent, or fact-based social science.
Enjoy!
| | While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Broadway One Man's Impassioned Account | As noted by other reviewers, this book does not present an unassailable case fortified by careful documentation. But if you don't expect it to, you'll get two excellent books in one: the personal story of a man who gains new appreciation for America's character after losing his idealized vision of European life in the course of actually living there, and a sweeping indictment of the political correctness and specious pacifism that could allow radical Islam to eclipse Western civilization on the European front.
What makes Bawer's account compelling is not any claim on his part to be authoritative, but specifically the risk to his own person and the challenge to his beliefs and stereotypes that his experiences represented. Quit arguing with his approach long enough to stand in his shoes and you'll be alarmed, I'm certain.
For Muslims offended by his take on Islam, I can sympathize. I often feel the same way when, as an evangelical Christian, I am lumped in with abortion clinic bombers and Fred Phelps. I am EAGER to denounce their behavior without equivocation and stand against them at every opportunity. That's all you can do with radicals (secular or religious) with a taste for hate and violence, because they must be vigorously opposed. | | While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Broadway 5 Stars to all those who gave this book a great review | | There are so many 5 star excellent reviews of this book I will only say I agree and read it! | | While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Broadway Truth About Isalm | I haven't even finished reading this book but I know that it is true as I have lived in Saudi Arabia and I am quite familiar with Islam. Hurry to the bookstore and buy this book, then read it and pass it on. Christian Scriptures warn us of the Anti-Christ and Muhammad is it. Muhammad's words are filled with hate, not love as Jesus taught. Muhammad teaches that all Jews, Christians and all others who will not accept Muahmmad as the prophet should be killed or pay tax to the Muslim government. I suggest reading Religion of Peace Why Christinaity Is and Islam Isn't by Robert Spencer. The Western world is in great danger and we must either stop these racical Muslims or die by their hand.
Wake up America! PLEASE! The greatest wars are religious wars. We have fought them before and must do so again. In light of what is going on, President Bush is not far wrong to fight the jihad. History will tell. | | While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Broadway Product Description | The struggle for the soul of Europe today is every bit as dire and consequential as it was in the 1930s. Then, in Weimar, Germany, the center did not hold, and the light of civilization nearly went out. Today, the continent has entered yet another “Weimar moment.” Will Europeans rise to the challenge posed by radical Islam, or will they cave in once again to the extremists?
As an American living in Europe since 1998, Bruce Bawer has seen this problem up close. Across the continent—in Amsterdam, Oslo, Copenhagen, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, and Stockholm—he encountered large, rapidly expanding Muslim enclaves in which women were oppressed and abused, homosexuals persecuted and killed, “infidels” threatened and vilified, Jews demonized and attacked, barbaric traditions (such as honor killing and forced marriage) widely practiced, and freedom of speech and religion firmly repudiated.
The European political and media establishment turned a blind eye to all this, selling out women, Jews, gays, and democratic principles generally—even criminalizing free speech—in order to pacify the radical Islamists and preserve the illusion of multicultural harmony. The few heroic figures who dared to criticize Muslim extremists and speak up for true liberal values were systematically slandered as fascist bigots. Witnessing the disgraceful reaction of Europe’s elites to 9/11, to the terrorist attacks on Madrid, Beslan, and London, and to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bawer concluded that Europe was heading inexorably down a path to cultural suicide.
Europe's Muslim communities are powder kegs, brimming with an alienation born of the immigrants’ deep antagonism toward an infidel society that rejects them and compounded by misguided immigration policies that enforce their segregation and empower the extremists in their midst. The mounting crisis produced by these deeply perverse and irresponsible policies finally burst onto our television screens in October 2005, as Paris and other European cities erupted in flames.
WHILE EUROPE SLEPT is the story of one American’s experience in Europe before and after 9/11, and of his many arguments with Europeans about the dangers of militant Islam and America’s role in combating it. This brave and invaluable book—with its riveting combination of eye-opening reportage and blunt, incisive analysis—is essential reading for anyone concerned about the fate of Europe and what it portends for the United States. |
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