'America: Imagine the World Without Her' Original Movie Review

What if Washington was killed by a sniper’s bullet? What if the south won the Civil War?  What if Germany built the atomic bomb first?  Dinesh D’Souza’s bold and controversial docudrama America, Imagine the World Without Her, asks these questions as it attempts to show America that she is was, and still is, a great country. The movie brings many forgotten facts back to light, and watching it is not time wasted.  Based on the book of the same name, America, Imagine the World Without Her is an eye-opening film that will either make the viewer want to throw D’Souza in jail or feel a new sense of patriotism. 

D’Souza put America on what might be described as a trial.  In his docudrama, he answered the many charges against America with history and interviews with people who have experience the American Dream.  The accusations were the theft of land and the genocide of the Native Americans, theft of half of Mexico during the Mexican War, theft of freedom from the African slaves, theft of world resources, and finally, theft of the American Dream through the free market system. D’Souza answers these questions from a historical perspective, quoting primary sources such as Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and others.

The thorn in America’s side that the film discussed that relates to this blog is the supposed theft of the American Dream. Big corporate companies are ripping off the consumer with their high prices and low wages.  Though D'Souza's points in favor of the American Dream were not his strongest, they were still valid.  D'Souza set up the example of a hamburger stop selling hamburgers at a 15 cent profit.  D'Souza then compared that to the cost of the customer making a hamburger at home, showing that the cost of making a sandwich was often more expensive than buying one at his fictional shop.  The docudrama interviewed several American Dream success stories, enough to inspire anyone to pursue their own dream.

Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, was sent by the French government to study the brand new American system.  He observed how no one bowed or scraped before one another in America.  The waiter was addressed as “Sir” as if he were a knight.  America was a place where, if a private citizen came up with an undertaking, he didn’t have to solicit the cooperation of the government.  He or she could do it himself, or with the collaboration of others.

Politicians and historians are now trying to shame America, and bring its destruction from the inside.  The Revolutionary War was fought for the creation of America.  The Civil War was fought for the preservation of America.  World War II was a struggle for the protection of America.  Our struggle is for the restoration of America.  President Reagan once said, the American anthem is the only one that ends with a question.  Every generation must answer that question.  “Oh say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave? O’re the land of the free, and the home of the brave?”

--Claudia Maxwell