Lee Harris, Civilization and Its Enemies Review

Overall Rating

Civilization and Its Enemies
Lee Harris
Simon & Schuster Free Press, Feb 2004, $26.00, 232 pp.
ISBN: 0743257499

These are well written essays that will have readers debate several of the prime conclusions (America is the last bastion for civilization to fend off the barbarians and America hid in the sand as if it had no enemies until the 9/11 wake up call). CIVILIZATION AND ITS ENEMIES postulates that recent presidents especially the enemy of the state Clinton failed to understand that the world was and is an unsafe place with many villains ready to destroy "civilization"; 9/11 warned us that the barbarians had crossed the Rubicon. If you accept that the Cold War was nonexistent and that Reagan, Bush the father and Clinton never sent troops to Panama, Kuwait, and Bosnia than this book is easier to follow even with its bias towards America as the last hope to save civilization (The Ugly American Syndrome). The discussions on Greece, Plato, Rome, and Dune are very interesting. On the other hand the Al Qaeda snippets describe the enemy, but fail to balance the picture of kids receiving three-square meals, a place to sleep, an education, and a reason to live while civilization makes oil deals. One sided as an Emperor Bush cheerleader, Lee Harris raises several interesting questions on what is civilization, what is its future, and indirectly who knew and failed to act before 9/11, as he draws generalizations that lead to those in the middle and to the left wondering who was Nero's scribe?

Harriet Klausner