Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson (1953–) is an American historian. He is an expert on ancient warfare and a professor of classical studies. When writing on those fields, he is typically very knowledgeable, although he also tends to interpret these topics in the light of his decidedly conservative views on, well, everything, really.

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Of course, he has decided that knowing everything about Rome and Greece means he knows everything about everything. He has written books proclaiming that it was the power of ancient Greek culture that led to Western hegemony over the rest of the world (explicitly rejecting geographical/environmental factors, for example). He proudly proclaims the vast superiority of Western culture and how it will always triumph, while at the same time constantly fretting over its possible decline due to the lack of classics education since the good old days. The archetypical example, and arguably Hanson's claim to fame, is his voluminous cherry picking foray into military history, entitled Carnage and Culture.File:Wikipedia's W.svg This is an interesting pre-9/11 neocon triumphalist ode to a particularly US conservative conception of "The West", its characteristics and virtues, dressed up as a sort of longue duréeFile:Wikipedia's W.svg perspective on historical armed clashes between "The West and The Rest". Following 9/11 the book immediately gained new popularity as "evidence" of why "we" would beat "them" into a bloody pulp and win in Afghanistan and Iraq and events clearly have demonstrated both the salience of his central thesis and the quality of Hanson's scholarship.

He also is a constant contributor to the National Review Online. From that perch, he has consistently banged the (oil) drums for war, both in Iraq and Iran, while at the same time expressing his extreme ignorance of modern warfare. For example, upset that Barack Obama had apparently turned against the idea of "victory", he attempted to write an article expressing that victory was not an obsolete concept, even in the "War on Terror".[1] However, what Obama was talking about (a formal end to war done with a peace treaty signed by representatives of both governments that can be seen and immediately recognized by the entire world) is not at all what Hanson tries to put forward as victory conditions. Instead, he puts forward three very amorphous "victory" conditions that would be very arguable, even if they were possible. At the same time, however, he sets as his goals things that are not fully within the power of the United States to achieve, as these goals rely heavily on decisions made by non-enemy governments and domestic constituencies within the US. In short, he is attempting to put a state-based concept onto a much more amorphous situation, and failing to see how it doesn't line up.

And this, in essence, is how Hanson approaches all of politics: He looks back to history (usually Greece or Rome) for something he feels is vaguely analogous, and tries to make them fit.[2]

Hanson is still a major George W. Bush fan boy, writing that "his tenure was without corruption", calling Bush a "centrist", and going so far as to say he may be "a model ex-president".[3] Apparently, any day now historians will recognize Bush as another under-appreciated Harry Truman-like president and soon he will rise through the historical rankings of presidents. Yep, any day now... still waiting... but it'll come... any day now...

With Donald Trump in the White House, Hanson has once again demonstrated his loyalty to any kind of Republican POTUS by framing the problem as one of Democratic obstruction and Republican infighting,[4] rather than a problem with Trump, by calling Trump a good "wrecking ball" and claiming that the Democrats and Obama were much worse,[5] and even trying to defend Trump's "government by tweet" antics.[6]

References
  1. Victor Davis Hanson, Victory - How Quaint an Idea!, National Review, February 10, 2010
  2. An example: The Mob Is Coming For You, Hoover Institution, September 30, 2015
  3. Victor Davis Hanson, Bush's Warranted Rehabilitation Will Come, National Review, April 25, 2013
  4. Victor Davis Hanson, Trump's Circular Firing Squad, National Review, July 27, 2017
  5. Victor Davis Hanson, The Endless Ironies of Donald J. Trump, National Review, June 13, 2017
  6. In Defense Of Trump's Tweets, NPR, July 8, 2017
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