While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 272 pages
• Published by: Broadway September 11, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0767920058
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0767920056
• Book Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 7.2 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Having recently published an indictment of Christian fundamentalist intolerance in the U.S. (Stealing Jesus), New York native Bawer relocated to Europe with his Norwegian partner in 1998 and found an even more dangerous strain of religious and cultural bigotry ensnaring Western Europe. A swarming menace called radical Islam, he writes, rings Europe's cities in smoldering Muslim ghettos, provoking everything from so-called honor killings and political assassinations to the Madrid subway bombings and the massacre of school children in Beslan. Worse, the Taliban-like theocracy Bawer sees looming inside backward immigrant populations resistant to integration flourishes under the protective wing of Western Europe's America-bashing, multicultural, liberal establishment. The latter correspond to the appeasers of Nazi Germany, in Bawer's view, since he believes that radical Islamism is every bit the threat to Western civilization that Nazism was. He scoffs at talk of "understanding" or "dialogue," indeed, at any but the most muscular response hitching Europe ever tighter to the U.S. war on terror. His clash-of-civilizations outlook means real issues often get washed away by sweeping statements designed to tar Europe's Muslims with one irredeemably hostile, welfare-sponging brush, while trading in well-worn stereotypes about virtuous American "realists" and corrupt European "idealists." (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Bruce Bawer, who has wrestled previously about American fundamentalism (Stealing Jesus) and gay rights (A Place at the Table), finds an equally contentious and compelling subject in the blind eye of European liberalism. Enchanted by the famed tolerance of Amsterdam, Bawer moved to Europe in 1998. But after settling in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood, the author noticed a society that offered "millions in aid, but not a penny in salary." Reviewers find Bawer an eloquent writer with his passion balanced between his American sensibilities and his European residence. The sharpest criticism—that a lack of a bibliography turns While Europe Slept into an exercise in pamphleteering—doesn't undermine the ultimate effectiveness, or importance, of Bawer's thesis.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within (Hardcover) I bought this book hoping to get a better understanding of what was going on in Europe with their Muslim immigrant population (things like the car-burning riots in Paris, areas of Netherlands ruled by Sharia and not Dutch law, etc., left me quizzical). Well, I got that understanding. And I got a lot more, not the least are vital insights as to just how very different Europe is from the US. The author is both a clear writer, and an excellent journalist who digs down into the entrails to bring forth the real guts of a story. The information he brilliantly provided often left me with my jaw hanging, wondering, "That's really what they think over there?" I learned an awful lot in the short time it took to read this book. I honestly think that every American should read it. It is a clarion call to not repeat the myopic, multicultural mistakes that have gotten European countries into a fix that I honestly don't see how they can get out of now. You will acquire a clear portrait of the attitudes of Muslims in Europe, as well as those of elitist Europeans in all of their moral smugness and self-assuming superiority. Many themes are presented, but perhaps the over-arching theme is that tolerance for the intolerable (wife beating, genital mutilation, honor killing, rape, etc.) is never ever a good policy for a freedom loving, individual-respecting society. While Europe Slept makes a highly readable contribution to the discussion on the impact of Mideastern Islam with the democractic West. It also has a lot to say about the role that the United States has played in this drama. It turns out that we are not nearly as bad as those who claim to hate us say we are. Reading this book had the unsuspected effect of leaving me feeling even more blessed and happy that I am one of those lucky ones to be an American. What else can I say except that this is a really, really good book. It brought a lot of light into an area that previously was something of a mystery. Highly recommended.