‘Ancestral Voices Prophesying War’

FROM the conservative perspective, the last fifty years have been politically successful. The first achievement of this period was to repair the damage done by Nazism, which had been an unprecedented threat to destroy democracy from within. A succession of leaders promoted belief in the society and the values they represented. Churchill, de Gaulle, and Adenauer; Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II-they were very different personalities, and sometimes at odds with one another, but in various ways they safeguarded that slightly nebulous entity known as the West, which has been in the process of formation for a long time, even though its frontiers remain undefined.

In contrast, their anti-democratic counterparts ranged from Khrushchev, Mao, and Castro, to Nasser, Pol Pot, and Mengistu. These treated the people over whom they had power as samples in a laboratory, to be reshaped into social forms with values that were not only mold-breaking but alien. Opportunism and ideology were indistinguishable. These rulers too were sometimes at odds with one another, but they threatened to overthrow the West from without.

About the Author

David Pryce-Jones

David Pryce-Jones (1936–2025) was a British author and commentator and served as a senior editor of National Review.

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FROM the conservative perspective, the last fifty years have been politically successful. The first achievement of this period was to repair the damage done by Nazism, which had been an unprecedented threat to destroy democracy from within. A succession of leaders promoted belief in the society and the values they represented. Churchill, de Gaulle, and Adenauer; Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II-they were very different personalities, and sometimes at odds with one another, but in various ways they safeguarded that slightly nebulous entity known as the West, which has been in the process of formation for a long time, even though its frontiers remain undefined.

In contrast, their anti-democratic counterparts ranged from Khrushchev, Mao, and Castro, to Nasser, Pol Pot, and Mengistu. These treated the people over whom they had power as samples in a laboratory, to be reshaped into social forms with values that were not only mold-breaking but alien. Opportunism and ideology were indistinguishable. These rulers too were sometimes at odds with one another, but they threatened to overthrow the West from without.