Mini Book Review: Dennis Prager's "Still the Best Hope"

Finally finished Dennis Prager's Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. I've heard Dennis say on his radio program that the book is really three books in one, and I'd almost agree with this assessment but for the fact that the third section, arguably its most important given the title of the book, is disproportionate, in terms of substance and depth, to the other two. The first section (Leftism) is comprised of four chapters (What is Leftism; Why the Left Believes What it Believes; Why the Left Succeeds; The Left's Moral Record) and is over 200 pages long. The second section (Islam) is also four chapters (On Evaluating Religions; The Moral Record of Islam; Islam, America, and the West; Responses to Arguments on Behalf of Islam), though it is half the length of the previous section (about 80 pages). The third section (America and its Unique Values) is not delineated by chapter titles and runs about 80 pages in length. If Dennis ever writes a second edition of the book, I hope he is able to flesh out the third section especially. I got the sense that he was rushing towards deadline. The discussion felt compressed and condensed and is not as well-documented compared to the documentation in Parts I and II.

The strongest and most insightful discussion, in my view, is on Leftism. Writing about the left must be like trying to hold a giant squid in your hands while describing it to an audience. Prager says as much in his opening pages. He argues that leftism is a kind of religion, albeit one without Scripture and verse, making it difficult to document its core beliefs and tenets the way you might be able to define (say) Judaism or Buddhism. In addition, Dennis points out that people on the left don't even refer to themselves as "leftists," nor do they consider their beliefs as an alternate worldview in comparison to other worldviews. Instead, they seem to consider their beliefs de facto, incontrovertible, unarguable, while all other viewpoints are not only dubious but evil. For Dennis to attempt to identify the tenets of Leftism must have required an arduous amount of research, and indeed, he provides endnotes for most (not all) of the points he makes.

His discussion on Islam (Part II) took a lot of guts. He admirably and consistently makes a distinction between practicing, peace-loving Muslims around the world and those who advocate Sharia law and forced conversion. He is not afraid to expose the ugly side of Islam with its history of violence, oppression, and especially the anti-Semitism which fuels its hatred toward Israel and America. He is hopeful and optimistic that Islam can and will be reclaimed by thoughtful, honorable, good Muslims who believe in the American trinity (see third section). Me, I'm not so confident. I hope he's right.

My only real criticism of the book has to do with his third section.