It may seem that another reader�s review of this book is superfluous. The battle lines are clearly drawn. You either hate Hanson or you love him. When I say that I love him, I am simply saving those who hate him the trouble of reading further.
But for those of you who are new to the debate, there may be some value in reading on. Victor Davis Hanson emerged on the scene in the early 1980s with a wonderful little book called �The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece�. This readable, engaging tome was taken up by, among others, John Keegan who embraced some of the ideas and began to publicise them.
�Who Killed Homer� emerged much later. It is a brilliant polemic � a fact that is often missed by the critics who belabour Hanson with the charge of being too controversial � I think that was rather the point. Hanson wrote in despair and anger. He despaired of the state of education in our colleges and universities. And he has written an impassioned, polemical diatribe on the subject. As Stephen Ozment remarked, �this is a book for anyone who has loved or hated a college or university�.
Like Bernard Knox who as a young man lashed out at the excessive technicality of classical studies (after reading an extended study in a classical journal entitled �The Carrot in Ancient Greece�), Hanson is incensed at the dearth of true learning at universities. He would have us go back to general principals. He would have professors stop publishing and start TEACHING.
First and foremost, Hanson makes the case for Greek civilisation. However we get our Greek, he would say, we must get it. Western Culture, he says, is largely founded on Greek ideas, filtered through intervening civilisations and systems of thought. I despair of the school curriculum I see these days. My young nephews are offered, through something called �social studies�, the fleeting opportunity in Grade 4 and 5 to learn about ancient cultures. The problem is that it is left to the teacher to decide WHICH cultures they study. It is entirely possible for students in Ontario to go through school without EVER studying Greek or Roman history. And whatever benefits may be derived from the study of meso-american culture or Chinese culture, they pale beside the importance of those which can be obtained through a study of the Greeks. For the study of other cultures does not speak to the core values of western civilisation. The values which, transmitted down through the centuries to us from the Greeks, have made our culture (for the time being) the dominant culture in the world.
Here is Hanson on the subject: �Yet as magnificent and accessible as the Odyssey is, the Iliad is the greater poem, the more difficult and important challenge to teachers of Greek, who, if they be teachers or Greek at all, must teach the Iliad and teach it frequently. Most subsequent Greek ideas � learning comes through pain, reason is checked by fate, men are social creatures, the truth only emerges through dissent and open criticism, human life is tragically short and therefore comes with obligations, characters is a matter of matching words with deeds, the most dangerous animal is the natural beast within us, religion is separate from and subordinate to political authority, private property should be immune from government coercion, even aristocratic leaders ignore the will of the assembly at their peril � start with Homer, especially the Iliad, but never again are they presented so honestly, and without either apology or elaboration.� And these Greek values, he maintains were UNIQUE in the world. Democracy, free speech, separation of church and state, a civilian army � these idea (and others) ALL began in Greece and nowhere else. And yet the general public in the west knows less about itss origins that EVER before.
The dust jacket notes, ��the formal study of the origins of Western Culture is disappearing from American life at precisely the time when it is most needed to explain, guide and warn the public about both the wonders and dangers of their own culture.�
What you will come away with from this book, if you have an open mind at all, is either a new (or perhaps renewed) appreciation for Greek culture. You will want to read the Iliad again and you will want your children to read it.
