Movie review: America, Imagine a World Without Her

“America, Imagine a World Without Her”
A documentary by Dinesh D'Souza
Produced by Gerald Molen, Academy-award winning producer of "Schindler's List", and Dinesh D'Souza, creator of "2016: Obama's America".
Watch the trailer.

“America, Imagine a World Without Her” asks us to imagine that George Washington had been killed by a sniper's bullet. He asks us to "imagine the unimaginable - what would the world be like if America did not exist?" The movie asks: would the world suffer the loss of a great nation or would it a better place without an imperialist, racist nation?

Although the movie received a CinemaScore rating of A+, Costco's liberal owners banned D'Souza's book by the same name until it was restocked due to public outcry. The book subsequently soared to number one on Amazon. A barometer of the movie's success is the plethora of left-wing attacks railing against the movie.

D'Souza, an immigrant, set out to discredit the anti-American historical narrative that has become the norm since the mid 1960s. D'Souza states, “When I hear young people on the campus repeat the narrative of American shame, I know they haven’t been told the whole story.”

This revisionist negative narrative is embodied in Howard Zinn's book “A People’s History of the United States," which for years has been required reading in many high schools and colleges. Grievances enumerated in the book include the agenda of conquest, racism, genocide, and the theft of land and labor. D'Souza observes that these indictments have occurred over long periods time, “But now they’ve come together in a single narrative of American shame.”

The movie aptly shreds this simplistic narrative and in doing so, presents less well known aspects of history. D'Souza notes that practically every nation throughout history has been based on conquest and that no nation should be singled out as the singular villain. He points out that while American settlers are accused of conquering Native American tribes and lands, those same tribes conquered one another long before the first settlers arrived.

He notes that European disease such as Smallpox killed Native Americans who were not resistant, in the same manner that Asian diseases such as the Plague decimated Europe. Yet in the negative narrative, Americans are uniquely implied to be personally responsible for those disease-related deaths.

D'Souza emphasizes that slavery is not justified and that it represents theft of life and labor. Even so, it has been practiced for thousands of years across the world. Because of our history, Americans have been burdened with national guilt over slavery and subsequent Jim Crow laws. Yet D'Souza points out that this singular view of history is incomplete. He notes that America as a nation was the first to banish slavery. Indeed, we fought a Civil War over it where 300,000 Union soldiers died for the principle. He also points out that African Americans in fact owned southern plantations and slaves - a fact conveniently overlooked by revisionist historians. D’Souza states, “What’s uniquely Western is the abolition of slavery, and what’s uniquely American is the fighting of a great war to end it.”

Particularly important today is D'Souza's coverage of Mexican-American history. Texans revolted against the despotic actions of Mexican dictator Santa Ana in order to establish their own state and eventually become part of America. America conquered Mexico City and thus the entirety of Mexico during the rebellion, then returned half back to Mexico (excluding Texas) and additionally retired Mexico's burdensome war debt.

D'Souza's states that "If America did not exist, the conquest ethic would dominate the world.” He points out that America has fought World Wars in Europe, in the Pacific, and more recently in Iran and Afghanistan. In each of these cases, our actions have been the antithesis of a conquering nation - we have stolen no land from these countries and in fact have gone to great expense to rebuild them.

D'Souza emphasizes that the shaming of America is a decades-old orchestrated strategy, originating with radical leftist Saul Alinsky who delineated his tactics in the book, "Rules for Radicals". Radical leftists have a transformative agenda for America. Yet to transform America - as promised by Barack Obama - it first must be deconstructed. D'Souza points out that Obama did not create this deconstructionist agenda - rather, he was created by it.

D'Souza asks "When will this stop?" and tells us "It will stop when we make it stop." The restoration of America must begin with the American people themselves.

In "America, Imagine a World Without Her,” D'Souza reintroduces Americans to their country and a positive history which has been buried - a history of which they can be proud. He states that revisionist history must end, saying, "We are going to start telling the true story of America.” It is a history of which Americans - and the world - should be proud.

“America, Imagine a World Without Her” is highly recommended for adults and school-aged children alike.