Posted by Kenneth Anderson:
Christopher Caldwell's New Book:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_16-2009_08_22.shtml#1250715875
[1]Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and
the West. While I have been trying hard not to keyboard very much this
summer, I have been doing some reading. This new book by Christopher
Caldwell is hands down the most interesting and important I have read,
all year - and given my interests in financial crisis and regulation
reform and all, that's saying a lot.
I know Christopher well and have a high opinion of him and his
writing, and if the Senior Conspirator says okay, and Christopher is
amenable, perhaps I'll ask for a guest post on this book. Here is a
bit of Claire Berlinski's review in the Washington Post:
"Reflections on the Revolution in Europe" -- an allusion to Burke
-- is the latest in a series of pessimistic books, my own included,
treating the conflict between a post-Christian Europe and a
resurgent Islam. Christopher Caldwell, an editor of the Weekly
Standard and contributor to the Financial Times, makes arguments
that have been made elsewhere: Mass immigration has changed
Europe's demography and is rapidly changing its culture. Many
immigrants to Europe have not assimilated; many retain or have
developed an Islamic identity antithetical to liberal European
values. But Caldwell makes these arguments unusually well, in a
book notable for its range, synthesis of the literature, analytical
rigor and elegant tone.
In 1968, Britain's Shadow Defense Secretary, Enoch Powell,
described Britain's immigration policy as "mad, literally mad," and
warned of a day when native-born Britons were "strangers in their
own country . . . their homes and neighborhoods changed beyond
recognition." He invoked the prophecies of the Sybil in the Aeneid:
"I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood.' " Widely
viewed as outrageously racist, this minatory speech destroyed his
career.
In Caldwell's view, "All British discussion of immigration has
been, essentially, an argument over whether Enoch Powell was
right." The answer, he says, depends whether we mean right in the
moral or factual sense. Caldwell agrees that the language of the
speech was inflammatory and malicious, but he argues that Powell's
demographic projections and visions of blood were -- factually --
correct. The story, Caldwell observes, has been similar throughout
Europe, an assertion he documents with a catalogue of ties between
immigrants who do not seem to love their new homes and violence,
crime, rioting and terrorism.
He does not argue that there is a monolithic Islamic identity or a
single set of European values, although it is inevitable that he
will be accused of this. He argues rather that there is enough of
an Islamic identity, and enough left by way of European values --
attenuated though these may be -- that they are not easily
reconciled and, if reconciled at all, will not necessarily be
reconciled in Europe's favor. He engages carefully with
counter-arguments that there is no cause for alarm, and rejects
most of them. He is particularly strong in dispatching the claim
that, on balance, immigration is economically necessary and
advantageous for Europe.
References
1.
http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Revolution-Europe-Immigration-Islam/dp/0385518269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250715291&sr=8-1
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