In his seminal The Clash of Civilizations,
Huntington anticipated the United States' battle with militant Islam. Here he turns his laser on America—or, rather, America as he thinks it ought to be. Despite its clinical tone, this book is an aggressive polemic whose central argument—that America, at heart, has been and in many ways should remain a Christian, Anglocentric country—wouldn't be out of place on many a conservative radio station. The author seeks at length to prove that the American Creed, which he defines as a Protestant-influenced ideology modeled on the British system, was the founders' original intent and remains America's best course. He then turns to many of the usual subjects—the imperiled primacy of English, the dangers of immigration and multiculturalism—to make his case. He argues that a growing divide between the patriotic working class and "denationalized elites" will lead to internal fissures. Where those findings can lead is another question. For instance, he predicts, and also expresses sympathy for, a movement of white nativism that "does not advocate white racial supremacy," yet he believes that "mixing of races and hence culture is the road to national degeneration." The book is also marred by a number of self-contradictions; for example, Huntington draws heavily on the founders to make a nationalist case even as he acknowledges that notions of Americanism (as opposed to allegiances to individual states) became popular only after the Civil War. Exhaustively researched and occasionally inspired, this polemic remains more often filled with colorless and ineffectual writing that will provide evidence for the converted but do little to persuade the doubters. (May 27)
