We started our Fourth of July weekend going to see Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie America: Imagine the World Without Her. 

We saw D’Souza’s last movie, 2016, when it was released in 2014. It was good. I had a few objections to some of the sweeping generalizations that made up the final quarter of the movie, but over all I enjoyed it. I wish now I could remember those objections, but in truth, I’m just glad I remember what the movie was about and that I saw it.

America, the movie, begins with various charges that are leveled at this country.

 

• Columbus conquered the natives he discovered already living in America.
• Southern whites built their plantations by enslaving their fellow man.
• America grabbed land and forced the native inhabitants off their home lands.
• America forces their ideology on the rest of the world by butting in on armed conflicts around the globe.

D’Souza makes his case, cogently laying out the charges and showing clips of respected historians and sociologists who list the evidence.

Then D’Souza moves on to show the fallacies inherent in each charge. Included in some of his defenses:

• Columbus never even reached mainland America.
• Free black plantation owners also enslaved their fellow man.
• There were many  indentured English servants brought to this country, making slavery not a race issue as much as an issue of man’s inhumanity to man.
• Native tribes were at war with each other long before Europeans landed here.
• Conquering and obliterating enemy cultures has roots stretching back hundreds of years ago, long before … well, see above.

D’Souza’s 2016 raised some questions with me. I didn’t have any similar reactions to America.

It’s well-researched and well-done. The production values are excellent, although some of the re-enactments came off a bit cheesy. Overall, America is worth watching. Especially during this season of remembering our history and what makes us the country that so many people are (literally) dying to enter and be a part of.

In one of Malcolm Gladwell’s books, he says that our nation was founded by brave, adventurous, and innovative people. Some of those pioneer genes continue to live and thrive in present day Americans. In other words, our forebears were great men and women and we still have greatness in our national DNA.

I think D’Souza would agree. After all, he’s a 21st century pioneer and new American.