What's So Great About America

by Dinesh D'Souza

  7 I understand the limitations of the term “fundamentalism,” which refers to a specifically American Protestant movement to return to biblical fundamentals. I use the term here to refer to Muslims who are seeking to return the Islamic world to a purer version of Islam unadulterated by non-Islamic ideas and influences.

  8 The Koran, trans. N. J. Dawood (New York: Penguin Books, 1995), 186.

  9 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 183.

  10 Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), 60–61; see also Bernard Lewis, “Jihad vs. Crusade,” Wall Street Journal, 27 September 2001.

  11 For readings on the meaning of jihad, see Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996).

  12 Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Avon Books, 1992).

  13 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Touchstone Books, 1997), 20.

  14 Lee Kuan Yew, “America Is No Longer Asia’s Model,” New Perspectives Quarterly, Winter 1996; Fareed Zakaria, “A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew,” Foreign Affairs, March–April 1994.

  15 John Esposito, ed., “Sayyid Qutb: Ideologue of Islamic Revival,” in Voices of Resurgent Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); John Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 135–37; Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, Intellectual Origins of Islamic Resurgence in the Modern Arab World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 133, 158, 172; Roxanne Euben, “Pre-modern, Anti-modern or Postmodern: Islamic and Western Critiques of Modernity,” Review of Politics, Summer 1997, 434–50.

  16 “The End of Democracy?” First Things, November 1996, 18–42.

  17 Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001), 6.

  18 Cited in “Idiocy Watch,” New Republic, 15 October 2001, 10.

  19 Ann Gerhart, “Black Caucus Waves the Caution Flag,” Washington Post, 28 September 2001, C-1, C-8.

  20 James Bowman, “Towers of Intellect,” Wall Street Journal, 5 October 2001.

  21 Stanley Kurtz, “Edward Said, Imperialist,” Weekly Standard, 8 October 2001, 35.

  22 These words, from the writer Arundhati Roy, were quoted in “Sontagged,” Weekly Standard, 15 October 2001, 42–43.

  23 Cornel West, Keeping Faith: Philosophy and Race in America (New York: Routledge, 1993), 236.

  24 Ali Mazrui, “Islamic and Western Values,” Foreign Affairs, September–October 1997.

  25 Nathan Irvin Huggins, Black Odyssey: The African-American Ordeal in Slavery (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 113.

  26 Dennis Farney, “As America Triumphs, Americans Are Awash in Doubt,” Wall Street Journal, 27 July 1992, A-1; see also John Hope Franklin, “The Moral Legacy of the Founding Fathers,” University of Chicago Magazine, Summer 1975, 10–13.

  27 Stanley Fish, There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing Too (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 87.

  28 Haki Madhubuti, Black Men: Obsolete, Single, Dangerous? (Chicago: Third World Press, 1990), 28.

  29 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 172.

  30 Martha Nussbaum, “Genesis of a Book,” Liberal Education, Spring 1999, 38.

  31 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), Vol. I, 394, Vol. II, 22.

  CHAPTER TWO

  1 Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr., “Africa Can Regain Its Glory,” Wall Street Journal, 28 January 2000; Steve Hanke, “Africa and Economics,” Forbes, 28 May 2001, 96.

  2 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 31; Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993), 8.

  3 Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); John Merson, The Genius That Was China (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1990).

  4 David Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 54.

  5 Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe, 68, 222; Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 ), 14.

  6 Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997).

  7 Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1982), 27.

  8 Chinweizu, The West and the Rest of Us (New York: Vintage Books, 1975), 3.

  9 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1968), 76.

  10 Steve Miller, “Black Leaders Set to Herald Causes,” Washington Times, 29 November 2001.

  11 Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, 375.

  12 Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); Philip Snow, The Star Raft: China’s Encounter with Africa (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988).

  13 Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), 199.

  14 Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), vii.

  15 J. M. Roberts, The Penguin History of the World (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 727.

  16 Roy Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953), Vol. II, 532.

  17 The documentation for this is provided in my earlier work, The End of Racism (New York: Free Press, 1995), 105–6 and accompanying endnotes.

  18 Henry Louis Gates, ed., Bearing Witness (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), 35.

  19 Peter Bauer, Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 67–68; Peter Bauer, Reality and Rhetoric: Studies in the Economies of Development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 2, 24.

  20 Even the Christian notion of miracles does not invalidate the reasonableness of reality. Miracles represent rare acts of divine intervention. A miracle is something that contravenes the laws of nature. Thus the notion of miracles does not reject—indeed it depends on—the presumption that nature follows regular laws. The wonder that attends a miracle arises from the astonishment that these laws might be suspended through divine action.

  21 Robert Nisbet, The Making of Modern Society (New York: New York University Press, 1986), 42.

  22 J. B. Bury, The Idea of Progress (New York: Dover Publications, 1960), 111.

  CHAPTER THREE

  1 James Burnham, Suicide of the West (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1985), 15–18, 20, 24.

  2 Jean Paul Sartre, introduction to Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1963), 13, 27.

  3 Mike Zwerin, “Birthday of the Cool,” Forbes, 15 November 1999, 322.

  4 Benjamin Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996), 293.

  5 Douglas Jehl, “It’s Barbie vs. Laila and Sara in Mideast Culture War,” New York Times, 2 June 1999, A-4.

  6 Elaine Sciolino, “Who Hates the U.S.? Who Loves It?” New York Times, 23 September 2001.

  7 Werner Sombart, Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? (White Plains: International Arts and Sciences Press, 1976), 109–10.

  8 V. S. Naipaul, “Our Universal Civilization,” New York Review of Books, 31 January 1991, 25.

  9 Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 47; Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe, 63.

  10 Cited by Paul Rahe, Republics, Ancient and Modern (Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), Vol. III, 53.

  11 Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, The Federalist Papers, No. 10, Isaac Kramnick, ed. (London: Penguin Books, 1987), 124.

  12 James Boswell, The Life of Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 1933), Vol. I, 567.

  13 William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, act 3, scene 2, lines 84–86.

  14 Confucius, The Analects (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 74.

  15 Khaldun, The Muqaddima
h, 313.

  16 Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, The Federalist Papers, No. 51, 321.

  17 Ibid., 320.

  18 Romans 7:19, Revised Standard Version.

  19 See, for example, Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizens (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).

  20 Cited by Michael Novak, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics (New York: Macmillan, 1971), 140.

  21 Cited by Reed Ueda, Postwar Immigrant America (Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), 124.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1 Michael Barone, The New Americans (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2001), 19.

  2 Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), 62–63, 138–40.

  3 David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 168.

  4 Ralph Lerner, The Thinking Revolutionary (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 163.

  5 William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (New York: Doubleday, 1976).

  6 W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 11.

  7 Philip S. Foner, ed., The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (New York: International Publishers, 1950), Vol. I, 126, Vol. II, 188–89.

  8 Franklin, “The Moral Legacy of the Founding Fathers,” 10–13.

  9 Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).

  10 Frederick Douglass, “The American Constitution and the Slave: An Address Delivered in Glasgow, Scotland, on 26 March 1860,” in John Blassingame, ed., The Frederick Douglass Papers (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979–92), Vol. 3, 352.

  11 Thomas Jefferson, letter to Henri Gregoire, February 25, 1809, in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., The Portable Thomas Jefferson (New York: Penguin Books, 1975), 517.

  12 Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 163.

  13 Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture.

  14 Cited by Harry Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), 32.

  15 Cited by Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985), 160.

  16 Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided, 370.

  17 Abraham Lincoln, “Speech on the Dred Scott Decision,” 26 June 1857, in Mario Cuomo and Harold Holzer, eds., Lincoln on Democracy (New York: HarperCollins, 1990), 90–91.

  18 Frederick Douglass, “Address for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments,” 6 July 1863, in Foner, ed., The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, Vol. III, 365.

  19 Cited by Herbert Storing, Toward a More Perfect Union (Washington, D.C.: AEI Press, 1995), 156.

  20 Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), 20.

  21 Derrick Bell, Faces at the Bottom of the Well (New York: Basic Books, 1992), 1, 3, 10, 152.

  22 Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve (New York: Free Press, 1994).

  23 Wayne Camara and Amy Schmidt, “Group Differences in Standardized Testing and Social Stratification” (New York: College Entrance Examination Board, 1999), 17–18.

  24 Laurence Steinberg, Sanford Dornbusch, and Bradford Brown, “Ethnic Differences in Adolescent Achievement,” American Psychologist, June 1992, 723.

  25 W. E. B. DuBois, The Negro American Family (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970), first published in 1908.

  26 Herbert Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976).

  27 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” in Lee Rainwater and William Yancy, eds., The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967).

  28 William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).

  29 Philip Kasinitz, Caribbean New York (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1 Cited by Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe, 286–87.

  2 Cited by Gertrude Himmelfarb, One Nation, Two Cultures (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), 94.

  3 Ronald Berman, ed., Solzhenitsyn at Harvard (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1980), 17.

  4 Cited by J. Bottum, “AWOL Christian Soldiers?” Weekly Standard, 1 October 2001, 12.

  5 Robert Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah (New York: Regan Books, 1996).

  6 Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 61–62.

  7 William Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators (New York: Broadway, 1999).

  8 Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (New York: HarperPerennial, 1976), 84.

  9 “Face of the Nation,” U.S. News & World Report, 15 April 1996, 18.

  10 Alan Ritter and Julia Bondanella, eds., Rousseau’s Political Writings (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988), 192.

  11 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 255.

  12 Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 29.

  13 Cited by Roger Masters, The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 212.

  14 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts,” in Roger Masters, ed., The First and Second Discourses (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964), 64.

  15 Rousseau, Emile, 286.

  16 Rousseau, “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts,” 51.

  17 Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, 27.

  18 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Confessions (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 1.

  19 Irving Babbit, Rousseau and Romanticism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1991), 127.

  20 St. Augustine, Confessions (New York: Penguin Books, 1961), 146.

  21 “Transcendence,” the philosopher Leo Strauss reminds us, “is not a preserve of revealed religion.” See Leo Strauss, “Natural Right and the Historical Approach,” in Hilail Gildin, ed., An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 105.

  22 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 16, 18, 27.

  23 Clifford Orwin and Nathan Tarcov, eds., “Introduction,” in The Legacy of Rousseau (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), xi.

  24 Arthur Melzer, “Rousseau and the Modern Cult of Sincerity,” in ibid, 277.

  25 Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

  26 Babbit, Rousseau and Romanticism, 5, 60, 63, 68, 128, 155.

  27 Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, 140–53.

  28 Buchanan, The Death of the West, 262.

  CHAPTER SIX

  1 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 401–5.

  2 Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1979), 54–70.

  3 Joe Loconte, “Rumsfeld’s Just War,” Weekly Standard, 24 December 2001.

  4 Donald Brown, Human Universals (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991).

  5 Salman Rushdie, “One Thousand Days in a Balloon,” in Steve MacDonogh, ed., The Rushdie Letters (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 122.

  6 Sakuntala Narasimhan, Sati: Widow Burning in India (New York: Anchor Books, 1990).

  7 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), Vol. I, 362–63.

  8 Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Race and History,” in Leo Kuper, ed., Race, Science, and Society (Paris: UNESCO Press, 1975), 116.

  9 See, for example, Amy Waldman, “In Iran, an Angry Generation Longs for Jobs, More Freedom, and Power,” New York Times, 7 December 2001.

  10 See, for example, John Fetto and Rebecca Gardyn, “An All-American Melting Pot,” American Demographics, July 2001, 8. The survey was conducted by Maritz Marketing Research.

  11 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 1995), 6, 189.

  12 Diane McWhorter, “Terrorists Tasted Lusty Lifestyle They So Despised,” USA Today, 26 September 2001, 11-A.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Although I began research for this book several years ag
o, it discusses themes that have engaged me since the time I came to the United States as an exchange student from Bombay, India, in 1978. Thus I cannot even begin to enumerate all the people who have contributed to this book. But I do want to single out my wife, Dixie, with whom I discuss these issues all the time; Michael Vetti, my diligent and uncomplaining research assistant; and Bruce Schooley, my most avid and helpful reader. I am grateful to the American Enterprise Institute and to its president, Christopher DeMuth, for the happy and productive decade I spent there. I also wish to thank my new employer, the Hoover Institution, and its president, John Raisian, for providing me with a base of operations and the freedom to read, think, and write. I am now the Rishwain Fellow at Hoover and appreciate the generosity of Robert and Karen Rishwain in supporting my current work. My thanks also go to the John M. Olin Foundation and its executive director, Jim Piereson, for vital support over the years. My agent, Rafe Sagalyn, was there for me, as always, and I have enjoyed working with my new editor at Regnery, Harry Crocker, who also happens to be an old friend. I also wish to acknowledge the advice and assistance of Sally Von Behren, T. Kenneth Cribb and the staff at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Philip Merrill, Doug and Pat Perry, Jason Pontin and the staff at Red Herring, Elizabeth Pungello and the W. H. Brady Foundation, Ron Robinson and the staff at the Young America’s Foundation, Richard Schatz, Kenneth Simon, Mark Skousen and the staff at the Foundation for Economic Education, and Steven Wardell.

  INDEX

  Abduh, Muhammad

  al-Afghani, Jamal

  Afghanistan

  Africa: American ideas and; civilization of; Islamic civilization and; liberation movements and; Western civilization and

  African-Americans: America and; patriotism and; racism and; slavery and

  Alexander the Great

  Ali, Muhammad

  Allah

  al Qaeda group

  America: appeal of; Athens vs.; characteristics of; Christianity and; enemies of; foreign opposition to; foreign policy of; internal critique of; Islam vs.; morality and; multiculturalism and; pre-September 11 attacks and; “pursuit of happiness” and; racism in; religion and; social ethic of; superiority of; technology and; terrorism and; uniqueness of. See also Western civilization