The author attempts to justify his dhimmihood w/ historical fabrications.
I'll give him this though; he acknowledges socialism's contribution to European stagnation. His solution that the assimilation of Islam into a post-modern Europe is plain fantasy.
The concluding paragraph is confused, and contradicts itself by asking nothing of the Islamic world. It's all on the West.
That's why I voted for Trump this morning.
His apparent need to incorporate current popular ahistorical ideology prevents him from getting the universal basic: that squabbling factions (eg, European nationalities) always need an external threat to unite in a common overarching cause. This occurred as he notes, with early threats from Islam. More relevant, it also occurred (which he misses) in the face of imperialistic Soviet communism, with western Europe bolstered in common cause by the Anglosphere.
In other words, the issue is not about Islam, it is about us.
The fall of totalitarian communism enabled the dissipation of the western alliance into the flabby remnants of NATO and the pseudo state of the EU, neither of which even approaches efficacy in facing renewed Islamic aggression. The current post-Cold War vitiation of western culture obscures the fact that Islam represents a cultural threat even more than a terroristic or military threat.
The solution, if Europe and the west are to have one, is not so much a "return to the past" but a recognition that history is cyclic rather than linear. In other words, we have been here before. In the past the emerging West met external threat by uniting around a common sense of security, energized by a cultural identity. That identity must be reignited, embodied in stronger states that reflect the people, and recognize the nature of the threat.
It is the attempt to fatalistically accommodate the flood of alien culture that is a recipe for surrender and assisted suicide.
I recently read “Isabella the Warrior Queen” by Kirsten Downey. Fascinating history. Isabella of Spain is due credit for the development of Europe (not to mention the Western Hemisphere).
Can’t recommend that specific book however. The author betrays bias despite having to refer to muslim atrocities throughout the book. For example, page 8 mentions Jesus as simply a Jew who announced a new religion; but the first mention of Muhammad is “the prophet Muhammad;” and 400 pages later, on her deathbed, Isabella is providing ransom funds for hostages held by “what she called infidels.”
History has gotten to be such a cow pasture of progressive anti-West bigotry. /rant
and the book that is essential reading if one wishes to understand what the threat of Islam really is->
I normally like Kaplan’s writing but this article is just blinkered. Not once does it mention theocracy ... the ends of Islam. There is no compatibility between Islamic theocracy and relative Liberalism as evolved through Christianity.
As Kaplan mentions, it took a slow and tortuous path through many centuries to reach relative Liberalism (big L) and democratic ideals. It was a long and bloody path. Looks like it will be again.