The War on the West
How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason
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4.7 • 12 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER
‘The most important book of the year’ Daily Mail
The brilliant and provocative new book from one of the world’s foremost political writers
‘The anti-Western revisionists have been out in force in recent years. It is high time that we revise them in turn…’
In The War on the West, international bestselling author Douglas Murray asks: if the history of humankind is one of slavery, conquest, prejudice, genocide and exploitation, why are only Western nations taking the blame for it?
It’s become perfectly acceptable to celebrate the contributions of non-Western cultures, but discussing their flaws and crimes is called hate speech. What’s more it has become acceptable to discuss the flaws and crimes of Western culture, but celebrating their contributions is also called hate speech. Some of this is a much-needed reckoning; however, some is part of a larger international attack on reason, democracy, science, progress and the citizens of the West by dishonest scholars, hatemongers, hostile nations and human-rights abusers hoping to distract from their ongoing villainy.
In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows the ways in which many well-meaning people have been lured into polarisation by lies, and shows how far the world’s most crucial political debates have been hijacked across Europe and America. Propelled by an incisive deconstruction of inconsistent arguments and hypocritical activism, The War on the West is an essential and urgent polemic that cements Murray’s status as one of the world’s foremost political writers.
About the author
Douglas Murray is a bestselling author and journalist. His books include the Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity and Islam and The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity. He has been Associate Editor at The Spectator magazine since 2012 and has written regularly there, as well as for other publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, The Mail on Sunday and National Review. A regular guest on the BBC and other news channels, he has also spoken at numerous universities, parliaments, the O2 Arena and the White House.
Customer Reviews
Rock of the Westies
The Madness of Crowds (2019) was a concise treatise on the most divisive issues in contemporary society: sexuality, gender, technology and race. It was not perfect — his comments on search engines and racism were debunked subsequently — and I did not agree with all Murray’s conclusions, but he made his arguments in such an entertaining way that even his ideologic enemies praised his skills as a communicator.
Here, he defends Western civilisation from the increasingly vituperative attack it is enduring, both without and within. “Wokeness” and “cancel culture” come in for considerable attention. (In November 2022, Mr M started a podcast called “Uncancelled History,” which complements this book.) His thesis is basically that we in the West have done a lot of stuff to be proud of, including acknowledging and rectifying mistakes like slavery which are still going on in non-Western parts of the world to this day, thank you very much.
The writing is of high quality, if a little hyperbolic. Some of the sources Murray cites are not as sound as he implies (the journalist Christopher Rufo, for instance), and he quotes some political opponents out of context deliberately to make a point. And to amuse. (Cheers to that.) That having been said, Mr Murray he makes some good points, and is worth reading if only for his superb command of the language and knowledge of history. (Would that the enthusiasts for cancel culture had a better — make that any — knowledge of history.)