Clive Davis and Mark Steyn have a disagreement about two recently released books which predict, roughly speaking, a death of Europe. Davis reviewed both for the Washington Times, while Steyn muses on the books, and on Clive’s response to them, in Macleans.
Steyn’s views on the coming disintegration of Europe (or to use Richard Neuhaus’s phrase, “Muslim-assisted suicide”) should be pretty well known. He seems to write compelling columns on the subject every 15 minutes. Davis maintains that the situation is considerably more complicated than some would have you think, and, using the publication of the aforementioned pair of books as an example, fears that many Americans are at risk of believing only in a caricature of Europe rather than in the three-dimensional place. At least that’s my brief summary of the situation: I recommend reading the stuff at the links above.

As for myself, I enjoy a good “Europe is doomed” column as much as the next guy or more, but I acknowledge that it’s worth pausing whenever you start to feel yourself too smug in your knowledge of such weighty things. Making predictions based on demographics is all very well, but of-course if the 1970’s “population explosion” Cassandras had been right, all the screaming hordes of humanity would now be fighting over the last can of baked beans. Nevertheless, several countries in Europe clearly face massive challenges over the next few decades, and a little alarmism is probably a good thing if it prompts a reconsideration by those who consider George Bush and global warming to be the greatest threats to their futures.

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