The War on the West

An Instant New York Times Bestseller!

China has concentration camps now. Why do Westerners claim our sins are unique?

In an era of identity politics, it is now in vogue to celebrate non-Western cultures and disparage Western ones. Some of this is a much-needed reckoning, but much of it fatally undermines the very things that created the greatest, most humane civilization in the world.

In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric. After all, if we must discard the ideas of Kant, Hume, and Mill for their opinions on race, shouldn't we discard Marx, whose work is peppered with racial slurs and anti-Semitism? Embers of racism remain to be stamped out in America, but what about the raging racist inferno in the Middle East and Asia?

It's not just dishonest scholars who benefit from this intellectual fraud but hostile nations and human rights abusers hoping to distract from their own ongoing villainy. Dictators who slaughter their own people are happy to jump on the "America is a racist country" bandwagon and mimic the language of social justice and antiracism movements as PR while making authoritarian conquests.

If the West is to survive in this escalating cultural war, it must be defended. The War on the West is not only an incisive takedown of foolish anti-Western arguments but also a rigorous new apologetic for civilization itself.

This vital polemic confronts the uncomfortable truths behind the assault on Western civilization:

• Critical Race Theory: Explore the inconsistent logic that cancels Enlightenment philosophers like Kant and Hume for their flaws while ignoring the virulent racism of Karl Marx.
• Anti-West Rhetoric: Uncover how hostile nations like China use the language of social justice to distract from their own human rights abuses, including modern-day concentration camps.
• The War on History: Connect the dots from one-sided academic arguments to the toppling of statues and the widespread campaign to rewrite the past as a shameful litany of failures.
• A Defense of the West: Arm yourself with a rigorous new apologetic for Western civilization, celebrating the tradition that gave the world science, democracy, and individual rights.