5 Feet of Fury

Mark Steyn is back, ‘celebrating’ the 10th anniversary of ‘America Alone’

Mark Steyn writes:

I can’t really remember why I decided to open the book by clobbering a novelist I rather enjoy. The fact that 99 per cent of all those hysterics raging against the exclusive and relatively sane nuclear club of the 1980s are entirely relaxed about a world in which North Korea and Iran have nukes (and coming soon Sudan and Somalia and Isis) is a point worth making. But, in making it, I think I was just casting Mr Amis as an all-purpose leftie tosser.

If so, I did him an injustice. Not long after America Alone came out, I woke up one Saturday to discover that The Times of London had published a review of my book. This was flattering in that the book had not been published in the UK, and so a review was of little practical use to British readers. Even more flattering, the eminent reviewer was Martin Amis. The flattery ended in the opening paragraph…