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The Strange Death of Europe

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The Strange Death of Europe
Cover of the 2018 updated edition
AuthorDouglas Murray
LanguageEnglish
Subjects
  • Politics
  • immigration
  • Islam
PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
Publication date4 May 2017
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardcover and paperback)
Pages352
ISBN978-1-4729-4224-1
OCLC1027567742
Preceded byIslamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady 
Followed byThe Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity 
TextThe Strange Death of Europe at Internet Archive

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam is a 2017 book by the British journalist and political commentator Douglas Murray. It was published in the United Kingdom in May 2017, and in June 2017 in the United States.

The book's title was inspired by George Dangerfield's classic of political history The Strange Death of Liberal England, published in 1935.[1]

Thesis

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Murray contends that European civilization as it has historically existed will not survive. He explores several factors in explaining this: The main is the ongoing demographic shift caused by combination of mass immigration of new peoples with high birth rates, European low birth rates, and the resilience of Muslim peoples to integration. European politicians are too weak to halt the shift. At "the same time Europe lost faith in its beliefs, traditions, and legitimacy,"[2] and became overwhelmed by the sense of self-hatred, compassion, and historical guilt.

Murray has no logical explanation for these feelings. For example, the concept of immigration as "empire strikes back" is peculiar to Western Europe though empires existed worldwide. All civilizations have committed comparable crimes in their time but only one of them is punished in this way. Murray refers to Pascal Bruckner's book, titled The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism, which has diagnosed the historical guilt as a Western moral intoxicant.

One chapter in Murray's book is also titled "The Tyranny of Guilt." In this chapter, Murray developes the "masochist" characterization of the West. It is the first society in human history who, when they are hit, know that they deserve it and only ask why they deserve it. The European masochists are welcome in the world of sadists. The European liberals and the anti-Western world find common language as easy as a masochist and a sadist do. "Only modern Europeans are happy to be self-loathing in an international marketplace of sadists."[3]

A diversity as practised diverts from Europe. While all cultures are equal, European cultures are less equal than others. A "person who favoured the culture of Germany over that of Eritrea had, in the most gracious interpretation, an out-of-date or ill-informed opinion, and in the more common view was simply an out-and-out racist."[4]

Murray outlines possible countermeasures but he is pessimistic about implementing them. The bottom line finds for Europeans no decent answer to the future. "Which is how the fatal blow will finally land."[5]

Reception

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The Strange Death of Europe received a polarized reception among critics and commentators. Writing in the National Review, Michael Brendan Dougherty praised it as "informed by actual reporting across the Continent, and a quality of writing that manages to be spritely and elegiac at the same time. Murray's is also a truly liberal intellect, in that he is free from the power that taboo exerts over the European problem, but he doesn't betray the slightest hint of atavism or meanspiritedness".[6] Rod Liddle of The Sunday Times called the book "a brilliant, important and profoundly depressing book".[7] In The Daily Telegraph, Juliet Samuel summarised Murray's book by saying, "His overall thesis, that a guilt-driven and exhausted Europe is playing fast and loose with its precious modern values by embracing migration on such a scale, is hard to refute".[8] Conservative political commentator John O'Sullivan concluded in his review that "Europe is drifting towards Eurabia".[9] Other commentators and writers who spoke positively of the book included Roger Scruton and Nick Cohen.[10][11]

Conversely, other reviews were very negative. Writing in The Guardian, the political journalist Gaby Hinsliff described Strange Death as "gentrified xenophobia" and "Chapter after chapter circles around the same repetitive themes: migrants raping and murdering and terrorising; paeans to Christianity; long polemics about how Europe is too 'exhausted by history' and colonial guilt to face another battle, and is thus letting itself be rolled over by invaders fiercely confident in their own beliefs", while also pointing out that Murray offers little definition of the European culture he claims is under threat.[12] Pankaj Mishra's review in The New York Times described the book as "a handy digest of far-right clichés".[13] In The Intercept, Murtaza Hussain criticized the "relentlessly paranoid tenor" of Murray's work and said that its claims of mass crime perpetuated by immigrants were "blinkered to the point of being propaganda", while noting the book's appeal to the far right.[14] In Middle East Eye, Georgetown professor Ian Almond called the book "a staggeringly one-sided flow of statistics, interviews and examples, reflecting a clear decision to make the book a rhetorical claim that Europe is doomed to self-destruction".[15]

A more mixed review of the book in The Economist claimed it "hit on some unfortunate truths", but "shows an incomplete picture of Europe today." Furthermore, it said that "the book would benefit, however, from far more reporting" and claimed Murray often "lets fear trump analysis" and was "prone to exaggeration."[16]

Editions

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  • Murray, Douglas (2017-05-04), The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (Hardcover ed.), London: Bloomsbury Continuum, ISBN 978-1-4729-4224-1
    • Murray, Douglas (2018-06-14), The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (Paperback ed.), London: Bloomsbury Continuum, ISBN 978-1-4729-5800-6 - added Murray's Afterword on pp. 321–337 at April 2018.
  • Murray, Douglas (2018-03-12), Der Selbstmord Europas: Immigration, Identität, Islam (in German), translated by Krisztina Koenen (EDITION TICHYS EINBLICK ed.), München: FinanzBuch Verlag, ISBN 978-3-95972-105-9
  • Murray, Douglas (2018-04-25), L'étrange suicide de l'Europe: Immigration, identité, Islam, TOUC.ESSAIS (in French), translated by Julien Funnaro, Paris: L'artilleur, ISBN 978-2-81000-825-4
  • Murray, Douglas (2018-11-15), La strana morte dell'Europa. Immigrazione, identità, Islam (in Italian), translated by Annamaria Biavasco e Valentina Guani, Vieenza: Neri Pozza Editore, ISBN 978-88-545-1701-1
  • Murray, Douglas (2018-12-14), Seiyō no jishi: Imin, Aidentitī, Isuramu (in Japanese), translated by Atsuo Machida, Takeshi Nakano (foreword), Tokyo: Toyo Keizai Inc., ISBN 978-4-492-44450-4

See also

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References

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  1. ↑ Azize, Joseph (6 October 2017). "The Strange Death of Europe". Retrieved 2021-12-08.
  2. ↑ Abrams, Elliott (12 July 2017). "The Strange Death of Europe". Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  3. ↑ Douglas Murray (2017). The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. (London: Bloomsburry. ISBN 978 1 4729 4225 8), chapter "Tyranny of Guilt", https://dn710005.ca.archive.org/0/items/the-strange-death-of-europe-immigration/The_strange_death_of_europe_immigration.pdf
  4. ↑ Murray 2017: no pagination, https://dn710005.ca.archive.org/0/items/the-strange-death-of-europe-immigration/The_strange_death_of_europe_immigration.pdf
  5. ↑ Murray 2017: bottom line, https://dn710005.ca.archive.org/0/items/the-strange-death-of-europe-immigration/The_strange_death_of_europe_immigration.pdf
  6. ↑ Dougherty, Michael Brendan (2017-05-30). "The Manchester Attack and the Death of Europe". National Review.
  7. ↑ Liddle, Rod (7 May 2017). "Books: The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray". The Sunday Times.
  8. ↑ Samuel, Juliet (6 May 2017). "Yanis Varoufakis and Douglas Murray: why Europe is weary". The Daily Telegraph.
  9. ↑ "The Dream and the Nightmare". Claremont Review of Books. Fall 2017.
  10. ↑ Murray, Douglas (12 June 2018). The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam: 9781472958051: Murray, Douglas: Books. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1472958051. "This is a vitally important book, the contents of which should be known to everyone who can influence the course of events, at this critical time in the history of Europe." - Sir Roger Scruton
  11. ↑ Murray, Douglas (12 June 2018). The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam: 9781472958051: Murray, Douglas: Books. Bloomsbury USA. ISBN 978-1472958051. "Douglas Murray glitters in the gloom. His pessimism about multiculturalism is so well constructed and written it is almost uplifting. Liberals will want to rebut him. I should warn them that they will need to argue harder than they have ever argued before." - Nick Cohen
  12. ↑ Hinsliff, Gaby (6 May 2017). "The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray review – gentrified xenophobia". The Guardian.
  13. ↑ Mishra, Pankaj (14 September 2017). "How the New Immigration Is Shaking Old Europe to Its Core". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  14. ↑ Hussain, Murtaza (25 December 2018). "The Far Right Is Obsessed With a Book About Muslims Destroying Europe. Here's What It Gets Wrong". The Intercept.
  15. ↑ Almond, Ian (11 August 2017). "Misrecognising the problem: Douglas Murray's The Strange Death of Europe". Middle East Eye. Archived from the original on 12 November 2020.
  16. ↑ "Fearing the "suicide" of Europe". The Economist. 17 June 2017.
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