This week, National Review TV showcases yet another Uncommon Knowledge interview with an Encounter author — this time its Bruce Thornton with his book Decline and Fall. In this first installment, Bruce and Peter Robinson discuss the demise of European civilization:

The symptoms: Economies are less adaptable and competitive because of an enormous regulatory burden; social welfare entitlements are incredibly expensive; and, demographically, Europeans simply aren’t reproducing. At the source of this demise is a loss of the foundational belief system that created the West — that created Europe — in the first place.

This comes hot on the heels of Bruce’s NRO interview just few weeks ago:

Kathryn Jean Lopez: What was the first sign that Europe was suicidal?

Bruce Thornton: If we take just the period after World War II, I’d say the collaboration and support of Communism and the Soviet Union on the part of many European intellectuals and politicians, coupled with hysterical anti-Americanism, was an important sign that European civilization was intellectually and morally bankrupt. The failure to see the true nature of Communism — that it is an ideology diametrically opposed to all the ideals of liberal democracy Europeans touted and enjoyed — bespeaks a suicidal collapse of certainty in the rightness of Western Civilization’s achievements, particularly respect for the individual, human rights, and political freedom. More recently, the flacid response to jihadist terror and European Muslim aggression against those same ideals also signifies an exhausted civilization unwilling to defend itself, and resentful of those like the United States who will.

Read the whole thing - and stay tuned for further installments of the Uncommon Knowledge interview on NRO TV every day this week.