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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4946 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-11
• Released on: 2007-09-11
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

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.

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.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* When cultural journalist Bawer moved to the Netherlands and then Norway, he found societies in which tolerance and civility were ubiquitous and social services provided from cradle to grave. But he soon discovered smug, ill-informed anti-Americanism, especially among politicians, academics, and the media, and a stifling political correctness that allowed biting the hand that feeds as long as the fed could claim minority status. Particularly alarming was the fact that Muslims were never criticized, Muslim-committed crimes largely overlooked. Brought to trial, Muslims were often acquitted on peculiar grounds and enjoyed all of Western Europe's welfare, which they take disproportionately to their numbers, including government subsidization of mosques. Bawer cites instance after instance to bolster his contention that Western Europe is on the brink of losing Western European ways of life, beginning with personal liberties. He hopes for a liberal reaction that will get tough with the enormously bold, bullying Islamic fundamentalists, who seem to have utterly cowed the so-called moderate Islamic majority. He fears fundamentalist Islamicization of Western Europe or, instead, the reemergence of racist fascism. A book of the utmost importance, full of deep concern for Europe and almost unbelievable revelations for most Americans. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Serious wake up call!
One of the common themes that appears in many writings of Spencer, Emerson, Steyn and others is that there are many Americans who, for one reason or another, are not proud to be Americans. Bawer alludes very strongly to that as well, and I believe he may even have been one of those people until his long term experience of living in Europe and seeing first hand the Islamization taking place there.

Americans (all Westerners, really) need to understand the total erosion of rights we take for granted being summarily squashed under Sharia. Bill of Rights? Fuhgeddaboudit! All men created equal? Not anymore!

As Bawer points out on almost every page, he is unabashedly and unashamedly gay, and the gay community must someday come to terms with the fact that right-wing America is going to do more to protect their civil rights than the liberals, who turn a blind eye to Muslim atrocities against gays in Europe and elsewhere. Civil unions don't provide much benefit when one's head is no longer in union with the rest of the body.

Instead of insightful analysis mere xenophobia
It is true that most European coutries have ignored the issue of immigration and integration for far too long, causing a certain ghettoization and the emergence of parallel societies. Particularly immigrants of Islamic countries frequently hardly speak their host country's language, perform poorly in school and often end up unemployed. There are also problems with violence, fanaticism and the oppression of women in this particular class of population (left-behind muslim immigrants).

However, it is populist, inconsiderate and hasty to blame Islam for all of this and to predict Europe's downfall (or even the entire West's!). There are several other explanations for intolerance and violence among Muslims in Europe: a large share of them is poorly educated (high correlation with violence and fanaticism for low education in all population segments), socioeconomically disadvantaged and often unemployed (again high correlation with violence and fanaticism for those attributes regardless of religion or ethnicity). There is no evidence that poor, uneducated, unemployed Muslims have a higher crime rate or affinity to extremist ideologies than e.g. poor, uneducated, unemployed Catholic French or Atheist Germans. This is an interesting and important question / field of study, but the author does nothing to bring to light some empric evidence from comprehensible trustworthy sources.

Also, many European countries have failed to design processes for integration (education about rights and duties, language classes, coaching), relocating immigrants to gloomy suburbs with already high crime rate. This is another factor that is hardly mentioned in the book.

Rather than providing new insights based on a thorough analysis, this book is merely exploiting xenophobia and airing itself as the skryer of a dark future...every bit as intolerant and undifferentiated as the fanaticism it attacks.

Let's Hope That Europe Wakes Up!!!
There are many who will blast this book as being antiMuslim propaganda. That is complete nonsense (but as the author points out in the book, anything less than complete submission to the teachings of Islam will be viewed by Islamic extremists as being antiMuslim). This is a book that desperately needed to be written, and now needs to be read by every freedom loving person in the precariously free world. It is interesting to learn the bio of the author: he is an openly gay man originally from New York who, after taking the Christian Right to task for several years, decided to live in the Netherlands with his partner in order to experience a whole new way of life and the freedom to be gay in a culture that warmly embraces homosexuality. In other words, he's not a Coulter-O'Reilly clone who believes that the world needs to be ruled by the Bible and that the US is the only nation of the planet. We needed an unbiased, nondogmatic view on this subject, and for the most part Mr. Bawer gives us just that. As we read in his book, the evolution of the Europe to which he first moves (a lovely, accepting if a bit snobbish and antiAmerican place) into a callipate in all but name is laid bare for all to see. Like many of the other reviewers, I wish that Mr. Bawer had included endnotes if for nothing else but to allow the reader to view the ghastly comments of the political and intellectual elite of Europe in their own words (I defy anyone to read the comment of Unni Wikan who basically said that if Norwegian women wish to avoid being raped, they must learn to conform to the Muslim ideal. In other words, nonMuslim women must put on a burka or else face their "deserved" punishment of being assaulted). This is a very scary book because it is true. The fate of France as a Muslim state under sharia is all but certain, and most Scandinavian countries seem hellbent on following Her path. I enjoyed Mr. Bawer's writing style (other than lack of footnotes) very much; he makes the reader feel as if an old friend who has been living abroad showed up for a chat about these issues. If the reader wants pure stats, he/she should goggle them or look at a spreadsheet. This is written to appeal to a public who reads "Time" or "Newsweek", not "Consumer Reports". One can only hope that Europeans read this book and take it seriously (which, since it was written by an American, I doubt they will). They need to reevaluate their entire immigration policy (for instance, an American brain surgeon probably couldn't obtain citizenship in Britain, but an iman who doesn't even speak English and openly calls for the overthrow of the secular government and establishment of an Islamic state is welcomed with open arms? I don't get it) and realise that they are harming all of their citizens (including law abiding Muslims) when they allow these monsters to take up residency. Militant Islam may be the biggest threat in history (much more so than Nazism or Communism, since it combines the philosophy of both of them with a lust for conquering and ending the world). Now is the time for the world to wake up and start taking it seriously.