Civilization and its Enemies the Next Stage of History
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200506000123 |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
Reviews
difficult and constrained those choices may appear in the context
of
a
terrorist emergency.
For those who persist in advocating an all-out global "war on terror,"
or those who insist that liberal democracies are never justified in resort-
ing to coercive measures, The
Lesser
Evil will fail
to
convince. For
everyone else in the middle, this nuanced and accessible discussion
of
the tragic dilemmas facing western societies is long overdue. Ignatieff
may be guilty
of
too much optimism, by concluding that democracies
will ultimately prevail,
but
he provides a set
of
standards that citizens
in western societies can use
to
hold their own governments to account.
Jennifer M. Welsh/University
of
Oxford
eMUZATION
AND
ITS
ENEMIES
The
Next Stage
of
History
Lee Harris
New York: Free Press, 2004. xxi, 232pp, $39.00 cloth
(ISBN
0-7432-
5749-9)
Lee Harris offers a quirky, idiosyncratic,
and
unconventional
overview
of
the challenges facing western civilization since the col-
lapse
of
the Soviet
Union
and
the demise
of
the
communist
vision.
The
attacks
of9/11
highlighted the presence
of
a new "enemy
of
civi-
lization," the radical Islamic terrorist acting
out
a religious "fantasy" by
exposing
the
vulnerability
of
the
"Great Satan,"
What
the current
enemy has in common with previous totalitarian ideologies in the
20th
century is the will to "ruthlessness" without inhibitions regarding the
use
of
force.
What
is different from the earlier communist challenge is
that the religious fanatic is more irrational, unpredictable,
and
essen-
tially part
of
amovement with no clear military strategy or overarching
political objectives.
The
most controversial aspect
of
the author's interpretation
of
radi-
cal Islam is his explanation
of
the motivation behind the 9/11 attacks.
This was
not
an act
of
war in the Clausewitzian sense that it served
to
weaken the United States strategically or to produce an alteration in
policies, notably
support
for Israel.
Nor
was the objective to under-
mine the general morale
of
the American public.
Thus
there were no
follow-up
attacks-bombing
of
shopping centres or communications
288
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Wincer2004-2005
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