The Force of Reason (La forza della ragione) is a 2004 book by Oriana Fallaci. The book is a follow-up to The Rage and the Pride, aimed at her public critics, accusations of racism, and the lawsuits and death-threats launched against her. The book became a bestseller, selling 800,000 copies in Italy alone.
Content
In the book, Fallaci states that Islam "presents a threat to the very existence of Western civilization, of conscience, of toleration, of liberalism–a message which is summed up in an epigram she quotes from the 18th century philosophe Diderot: “Islam is the enemy of Reason.”" She also compares herself to the enlightened Florentine scholar, Mastro Cecco, who in 1327 ran afoul of the local authorities and was then turned over to the Inquisition whereafter he was "tortured, and asked to recant his ideas, but because he cannot declare false what he believes to be true, he is condemned to be burnt alive in the public square, along with all his books and writings."
She notes that the modern inquisitors "have devised subtle and insidious ways to go after the soul. With the help of newspapers, TV, public schools, colleges, and universities, they have developed a diabolical technique in which it is no longer necessary to engage in debate with those who disagree with their own party-line; it is enough simply to destroy the public character of their opponents, either by outright slander, or by insinuations of insanity. Or, worse, to intimidate them into obsequious silence with the threat of criminal charges, and even with the threat of death itself."
In a review for National Review, Lee Harris wrote that "one is bound to come away with a troubling sense of the fragility, if not the immense vulnerability of reason." He writes that as in The Rage and the Pride, Fallaci has "one searing message to bring us, and she delivers it with breath-taking disregard for political correctness," and concludes that "ultimately, if reason has any force, it is due to the examples of men and women, like Mastro Cecco and Oriana Fallaci, who have given force to reason through their own uncompromising commitment to it."
The book describes in detail the Eurabia theory associated with Bat Ye'or,