The Death of the West

The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization is a 2001 book by paleoconservative commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, in which the author argues that western culture will soon be imperiled. Summary The title of the book is a reference to Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West. Buchanan argues that the culture that produced western civilization as traditionally understood is in its death throes in the United States which will no longer be a western country by the year 2050. He uses United Nations population statistics to analyze the recent trends in global populations, especially major declines in European nations and major increases in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Buchanan argues that the United States has a "nation within a nation" already. The population of 30 million foreign born (of which 11 million are "illegal aliens") is larger than the entire population of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Buchanan argues that "counter culture" of the 1960s has become the dominant culture, which aims to rewrite American history and dismantle its heritage. In his opinion, this is a hostile culture which regards western civilization with antipathy: "A new generation has now grown up for whom the cultural revolution is not a revolution at all, but the culture they were born into and have known all their lives." He sees the new culture as being intolerant towards those of differing beliefs and determined to impose political correctness.