Non-Western cultural contributions are celebrated, and flaws are labelled hate speech. Western flaws discussed, contributions called hate speech. Some reckoning, but a global attack on reason, democracy by dishonest scholars, and hostile nations in play.

"The War on the West" by Douglas Murray unveils polarization's origins, exposes hypocrisy, and reclaims political debates. Urgent and essential, it cements Murray as a top political writer.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

If you read the author’s previous books, "The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity" and "The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam", you’re pretty much set on what the culture war is about. This book tackles the same issues but from a post-George Floyd Assassination era.

The assassination of George Floyd by cops in Minneapolis was not new. In America it is one of many such cases, but it gained immense traction on the news and social media, also at the peak of the world's pandemic and American domestic mishandling of it. Most people around the world were shocked and disgusted by the incident, but some actors took advantage to employ their radical views and tactics to fight against the status quo and radicalize an already polarized society, all thanks to the culture wars that marked the Trump Administration.

It was also the start of political and cultural mayhem, which saw many attempts to employ race and racism as a barometer for every social interaction. Douglas Murray takes us on another uncomfortable journey to tell us about what ways this wave of violence and bigotry, fueled by intersectional ideology, shaped the political and social landscape. This also means the ways business adapted, and some adopted, a new form of censorship that gets very close, in my opinion, to what the soviets and maoists had once employed.

I do not make these comparisons lightly because, in practice, that’s where you get the “War on the West” title. The fight of the “woke movement” as they call it, is also a fight against capitalism, meritocracy, wealth, and all things attributed to western civilization. They also claim to fight colonialism, calling it a Western sin, but forget soviet imperialism every time they wave communist symbolism during anti-racist protests. And here, Murray essentially explains us how intersectionalists are also notorious revisionists of past and present.

There’s also a brief interlude on China, pointing towards the hypocrisy of letting the CCP lecturing the west on minorities protections and handling of freedoms.

Considering that I’ve read Murray’s previous books and also Helen Pluckrose’s "Cynical Theories", this book did not impact me as much as it could, but if you want an up to date on the culture wars and how it is undermining western institutions – unironically in favor of authoritarian regimes like Russia and China – Murray’s silk eloquence will keep you informed, shocked and uncomfortably entertained.

On a last note, I’m not sure about this cover. If this has any effect of people with visual disabilities, I guess that’s fine, otherwise is horrible on the eyes.

I found this quite an interesting read. It's important to have voices to counter the dominant ideas within any cultural sphere, and Murray takes on social justice twitter and prominent discourse within intellectual debates. I think some aspects are stronger than others, and the defense of Western creativity is passionate and justified.

An important read, summing up the madness surrounding us today in the West. The problem is, if you're interested then a lot of the stuff Murray covers you'll already be aware of so it can feel quite repetitive at times. Murray also fails to move much further on than Culture War issues and get into the deeper issues causing the war on West, such as the CCP, Globalism and the corporate corruption of the US govt.
Not as good as the Madness of Crowds but definitely a book you should read.

A good start for anyone who doesn’t know that much about critical race theory and the deep injustices that span many countries, centuries and colonies. The book references a few books which I’ve read which for me took away from the overall points but if you haven’t read them, then you’ll learn alot! The chapters are broken in to good lengths and I wanted this for ages so thank you to NetGalley for this

The writer is a respected writer, which is why I downloaded The War on the West.
I found this book to have great breadth but little depth.
Murray asserts that the death of George Floyd was not because he was black - and cites a similar death of a white individual in police custody as proof that race had no part in George Floyds death.
I could not disagree more.
Nevertheless, Murray gives many examples of how he feels there is a 'War on the West'. Whilst his contrarian views are important to understand the arguments made are too flimsy to take seriously.

What a very frustrating book! Certainly, the line of argument the author proposes has many supporters, as witness the many references to ‘woke nonsense’ in today’s media. There is also a pervading sense of an encroachment into day to day living of the extreme views highlighted by Douglas Murray. For this reader, however, whilst recognising the dangers and sinister influences of what Murray refers to as an assault on many aspects of Western civilisation, his arguments are undermined by the relentless dissection of the many examples he cites. The arguments and dangers are pretty clear and do not need quite such an assault on the reader’s consciousness. More worryingly, the author’s occasional digressions and ‘Aunt Sally’ positions, which he subsequently demolishes, run a real risk of conveying precisely the world view that his opponents falsely accuse the establishment mindset of exhibiting.

Douglas Murray presents a polemical critique of (mostly) left-wing anti-Western sentiment, arguing that this is sapping the moral authority of the West (America in particular) and whitewashing egregious human rights shortcomings perpetrated in other cultures. Readers with the same outlook as Murray will likely cheer him on. Those who disagree with his basic position will likely be enraged. Those who approach the book from a more "centrist" position (where I consider myself to be) might not agree with all (or even most) of Murray's ideas, but will likely share his suspicion of the media (social and otherwise) and its willingness to jump onto the political bandwagon of the day without necessarily checking facts or adopting a balanced approach. A fuller review will follow.