WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT AMERICA
by Dinesh D'Souza

In 430 B.C., shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles delivered a funeral oration to the people of Athens. His dilemma was the classic one faced by free peoples throughout history: how to articulate the blessings of freedom which are usually taken for granted, how to communicate to citizens the necessity of making sacrifices—including the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life—in the name of freedom, and how a society accustomed to the pleasures of private life can prevail against a more militaristic regime inured to hardship whose fighters are cheerfully willing to endure death.

This book demonstrates that America remains powerful and vibrant because it appeals to what is good and true in the human condition. D'Souza patiently and honestly answers those who say that America is eveil because of its alleged bigotry, or inequality, or moral degeneracy. The author’s timely and convincing argument should have a wide appeal across the political spectrum. —VICTOR DAVIS HANSON, author of Carnage and Culture

What are the ingredients of that civilization? “When it is a question of settling disputes, everyone is equal before the law. When it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership in a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.” Equality and meritocracy are, in Pericles’ view, two of the defining characteristics of ancient Athens.

Moreover, “just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way. We are free and tolerant in our private lives, but in public affairs we keep to the law. That is because it commands our deep respect.” Athens is a freedom-loving society, but its liberty is within the bounds of the law. Free people choose to obey the law because they see it as legitimate and for their benefit, rather than arbitrary.

Athens is also a commercial civilization that trades freely with its neighbors. “The greatness of our city brings it about that all the good things from all over the world flow in to us, so that it seems just as natural to enjoy foreign goods as our own local products.” There is an easy traffic of peoples across state boundaries. “Our city is open to the world, and we have no periodical deportations in order to prevent people observing or finding out secrets which might be of military advantage to the enemy.

In a fast-paced, well-thought, and quietly deep assessment of America’s place in the world, D'Souza presents the case for the United States against its leftist, European, and militant Islamic critics, and he does so with an immigrant’s special insight. For intellectual ammunition against America’s enemies, and to strengthen one’s love of America, there is simply no better arsenal than this book. —DANIEL PIPES, Director of the Middle East Forum

This liberality of mind and policy, Pericles concedes, makes Athens vulnerable to enemies who seem leaner, hungrier, and hardier. “The Spartans, from their earliest boyhood, are submitted to the most laborious training in courage.” Even so, Pericles emphasizes that the Athenians “pass our lives without all these restrictions, and yet are just as ready to face the same dangers as they are.”

The reason is that “others are brave out of ignorance, but the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.” Pericles calls upon the Athenians to recognize that theirs is the city that makes the quest for wisdom and the good life possible, for themselves and for their children, and he calls upon citizens to develop an eros for their city, a deep and abiding love that will justify and make possible the sacrifices that must be made to preserve Athenian liberty and the Athenian way of life.

“What I would ask is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she really is, and should fall in love with her.” The greatness of Athens as she really is. Even as he presents a somewhat idealized view of Athens, Pericles is saying that ultimately we fight for our country not in the name of some abstract theory, not even in the name of founding myths and constitutions, but in the name of the kind of society that we live in, and the kind of life that it makes possible for us.

America today is in the position of the ancient Athenians, facing in the militants of the Islamic world a new kind of Sparta. What is needed, therefore, is an examination of the source of the conflict, of the nature of the enemy. But what is needed, most of all, is an understanding of the moral basis of Western civilization, of what makes the American experiment historically unique, and of what makes American life as it is lived today the best life that our world has to offer. Only then can we know what is at stake in this war and what we possess that is worth fighting for.