How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam Is Dying Too) by David P. Goldman

An interesting, disorganized read

Published 2011 by Regnery Publishing

David P. Goldman's How Civilizations Die is an ambitious study in demographics, history and cultural legacy that attempts to predict the future of Western Europe, the Middle East and the United States. In a way it is a less humorous version of Mark Steyn's After America, except that Goldman takes in the same data and comes up with radically different conclusions.

Goldman writes a monthly column under the pseudonym of Spengler at Asia Times Online, a fact that Goldman assumes his readers know before they open the book and a fact I did not know (it's on the dust cover, but I had set aside the dust cover). I kept wondering who Spengler was and why Goldman was quoting him so liberally and did not get the joke until the second-to-last page of the book. Throw in a chaotically arranged beginning to the book with lots of wonderful points arranged in an apparently random fashion and this reader was frustrated for the first 50 pages or so.

But, somewhere in the middle some wonderful observations and themes start to come together and Goldman really hits his stride. There are powerful observations about why religious faith has all but died in Europe, why fertility rates will fall farther and faster in many Muslim countries. This is the crux of his disagreement with Steyn who gets only the briefest of mentions, but whose arguments are referred to throughout. 

Steyn has argued that Muslim countries are on an arc to simply have more children that Christian and post-Christian countries and eventually Muslims will be a world power due to simple demographics. Goldman argues that the fall in the rate of population growth that has hit countries around the world (Russia, Romania, Japan, and more) is hitting Muslim countries as well.  Goldman goes on to discuss why this fall in fertility is a crisis in countries like Iran is a serious crisis that must be managed with a deft hand. He includes more than enough statistics, charts and analysis to drive his point home. I would love to listen to a debate between Steyn and Goldman on this topic. 

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5. I have to take off a point for the chaotic start. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam Is Dying Too) by David P. Goldman.

Reviewed on October 6, 2011.