Customer Reviews

Why the West Has Won

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Not before the Greeks, not before the 480 BC battle of Salamis, the largest naval engagement in history, pitting the Panhellenes under Themistocles against the Achaemenid Persians under their king, Xerxes, did personal freedom clash against totalitarianism. The decisive factors in that and the other "Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power" described in Victor Davis Hanson's 463 pages of gore now seem fundamental to civilization, but they were not always so. Hanson's theme is that some six elements in the Western pursuit of war have led us to our current world view. They are 1) personal freedom, which "does not begin earlier than the Greeks," 2) civic militarism, in which duty calls citizens to the defense of their property and ideals, 3) civilian audit, placing limits on the independence of the military, 4) scientific tradition, bringing both its logic and its technology, 5) decisive shock battle by disciplined infantry, 6) and private property, providing soldiers a vested interest in the outcome. Hanson also refers to these factors in aggregate as "secular rationalism," once the reader becomes familiar with the elements of the term. For most of the "case studies," as he calls them, Hanson uses a uniform analytic framework. First, he provides a summary of what happened, with attention to the specific methodology of bloodletting. Second, he presents an explanation (he uses the term "exegesis") of how the victor had developed the specific military superiority described in the summary. Then he interprets the historical significance of the victory. As a professor of the classics, Hanson frequently cites historic antecedents, which he refers to as "the classical paradigm." In addition to Salamis, 480 BC, we get Gaugamela, 331 BC, Cannae, 216 BC, Poitiers, 732 AD, Tenochtitlan, 1521, Lepanto, 1571, Rorke's Drift, 1879, Midway, 1942, and Tet, 1968. The afterward, "Carnage and Culture After September 11, 2001," will comfort any who doubt that we will ultimately defeat global terrorism. Above I stated that most of the case studies follow the same format. The chapter on Vietnam does not. It is more heavily weighted toward exegesis. It is an articulate depiction of why the war tore at America's conscience, and why things turned out the way they did. I have seen nothing better written about America in Vietnam. Overall, this book will give you an appreciation of the copious amounts of blood which have been spilled to create and preserve our Western values. And that bloodletting is far from over.

My first encounter with Victor Davis Hanson came between the covers of "The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece," in which he described the horrific, bloody scrimmage that was hoplite combat. At the conclusion of the book he drew some far reaching conclusions (with which I did not agree) about the Western way of war. Since the publication of that book, Hanson's thesis has been borne out by Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

This book, which is a retitled version of "Carnage and Culture" elaborates the thesis set forth in "The Western Way of War" with a study of nine epic confrontations which should be familiar to any student of military history. Indeed, the only unfamiliar name was "Poitiers," which I at first mistook for the famous English victory from the Hundred Years War. Not far into the chapter, it was revealed that Hanson was talking about the Battle of Tours.

Ironically, every victory recounted save one came within a hairbreadth of disaster. The Greeks at Salamis nearly debated themselves into anarchy. Parmenio was almost overwhelmed at Gaugamela. Had Charles Martel's shield wall lost cohesion against the murderous onslaught of the Saracens, the Franks would have suffered the fate of the Housecarls at Hastings and a Mosque might well now stand on the site of Notre Dame Cathedral. Cortez came within an inch of annihilation at Tenochtitlan. The admirals at Lepanto emulated the Greek bickering before Salamis. If the 4,000 warriors of the three Zulu impis had had the strength to mount one more charge, the 100 defenders of Rorke's Drift would almost certainly have been overwhelmed. That the outgunned, outmanned, outperformed American forces prevailed at Midway is attributable as much to luck as to anything else. Only the American victory during the Tet Offensive was never seriously in doubt.

Hanson looks at each of the first seven victories and isolates the one aspect of Western Military Ethos (WME) that helped snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. He also looks at the horrific Roman debacle at Cannae and discusses the one aspect of WME that helped Rome overcome that defeat. Finally he looks at Tet and discusses the aspect of WME that turned tactical victory into short range strategic defeat. Long range it planted the seeds for success in Desert Storm and Afghanistan and the initial success in Iraq II.

Reading the chapter on Tet, I could not help but see the potential for a Tet Redivivus in the pacification of Iraq. Hanson correctly observed that the Vietnam War was not lost in Asia--it was lost in the USA. If Iraq II is lost, it will not be lost in Asia either. The last chapter of this book should be required reading for all Americans.

VDH is always impressive and spot on with his books. I was excited to finally receive this one and then realized it was a paperback of Carnage and Culture. Disappointed to say the least. Though C&C is a wonderful and timely book. So, I'll give it 5 stars, but only if you've never had the opportunity to read Carnage and Culture.

I have been thinking about religion lately. As little as this book has to do with religion, it has answered many questions about religion, morality, human rights, free culture, literature and so much more. I can't remember ever reading a book that brought together so many answers to so many deep questions - and not just why western cultures are dominant today.

It feels like Hanson is judging the cultures that he examines, and he is, but he doesn't hold back judgment of the particular western culture he is comparing them too either. He even goes as far saying Alexander was like Hitler, and calling Cortez a butcher isn't really a stretch. That aside however, the analysis is solid and compelling, certainly not to be ignored.

There are two things that I would have liked to have seen from this book that weren't there:

1. An examination of the Mongol invasions - one large counter example to the basic trend that Hanson mentions again and again. The Mongols represent non-western soldiers using non-western tactics and weaponry being successful against western soldiers using western tactics and weapons, all the while, the mongols are far from home and invading Europe.

2. A deeper look into origins of what he was discussing. We still don't really know the origin to free culture except that it comes from the Greeks and from the 500-800BC time frame. Was it the idea of one person? One town? One particular movement? We don't know.

Interestingly enough, and I don't know if it was Hanson's intention, he presents the success of western culture and western ideas as an exact parallel to the evolution of individuals and populations. War against surrounding states is simply the environment in which ideas are judged as fit or unfit, to live or die, based on how productive they make the population.

This is a fantastic book that I think any student of history should read.

As we gain experience in life and see how ignorance is so often the driving force in our daily decisions and positions, we realize the importance of educating ourselves and those around us to our true history as the western man.
What we have created is no accident. What we have died for is nothing less than the most successful civilization in the history of man. The principles it is based on are the most humane, enlightened and free the world has ever seen. Which is not to say we have not had our moments of barbarism and blindness; we have, and many of them. Regardless of these, which we have always seen fit to correct and change, we have given the world the most freedom it has even had, the most prosperity, and with it the uplifting of those who had no hope before.
This book shows us how we accomplished that, and although it is viewed from the perspective of our military engagements, what comes out of it is the realization that our military victories and defeats are but a necessary evil in the pursuit of something far greater than themselves. In a world where military might had always been the determining factor and the end-all for most civilizations, for the west it was but a necessary step on the path to something far greater.

Few of us would do well to debate the value of Hanson's earlier 'groundbreaking' descriptions of the physical experience of phalanx warfare, the technological elements that helped constitute its nature, or many of the base socio-geographic factors that would have influenced the way in which the Helennes went to war.

No less than John Keegan reports Hanson as an influence on contemporary understanding of the nature of men in conflict in his "A History of Warfare".

Sadly, in "Carnage and Culture" - as in other of his works - Hanson cannot seem to resist the urge to vent his political and social morale. He thus turns his (otherwise) compelling logic for the military sciences (the nature of human psyche, motivations/inhibitors in the face of danger, and technology applied at the point of conflict) into a disjunct, nonsensical, and politically-transparent manifesto.

Most unfortunate is that Hanson is an intelligent, passionate, and even charming individual who really knows his particular facets of history; in fact one of the most regarded experts on early Greek warfare. He has the literary and analytical ability to produce good and useful history, and is an entertaining writer.

This reviewer has had the pleasure of personally conversing with Hanson on two occaisions. The feeling one comes away with is that Hanson is a master of drawing logical conclusions in the physical realm, but struggles as an author, and an individual, in reconciling what he "knows" with what he "believes".

Carnage and Culture is a fun read -- loaded with fascinating anecdotal rhetoric. But in the final analysis, as the grand work of extrapolative historical lesson-learning for the modern age which Hanson wants us to hear?: It lands as tabloid-esque, pseudo-academic, self-serving fluff.

Too bad!

It is truly sad to see that the readership even in this late stage of Western civilization (when presumably the level of historical understanding should be advanced) still falls for the basic inexpert interpretation of History that plagued this 'idealistic' World-view which has nothing to do with Historic reality.

Is it not time to emancipate the public perception of the Classical antiquity once and for all from all of these politically-correct, but historically highly misleading and ultimately ignorant interpretations of even the most regurgitated piece of History ever told (Greece and Rome)?

If the 19th century with its age of lavish Romanticism, Parliamentary-enthusiasm and never-ending revolutionary zeal aimed by the lesser individuals to overthrow the greater and overturn the Western societies (and their States) into something as liberally decadent and morally corrupt as the West in general is today - COULD BE excused for its relentless romanticizing towards the idealized Classical past (although Theo Mommsen did not allow himself to lose coolness under the pressure of wishful thinking), it is truly banal that works such as these (in this case by V. D. Hanson in "Why the West Has Won" (won what?)) are printed.

They mislead the public. At Salamis - it was not "the West" that was defended but a coterie of greedy little Mediterranean oligarchies (in which only one - Athens was a democracy), moreover, most of their cousins across the Aegean were enjoying the enlightened Persian overlordship (which did not take away any of their "native" practices for worldly-wise Persians could not care less what these little Greek-speaking city-states practiced politically inside their highly limiting city walls).

Slogans such as "Persian Tyranny Defeated Greek (by a jejune extension "European") Freedom" implying thereby that somehow the ancient Greeks represented the Western values of the past 1000 years, is patently false, ludicrous, highly misleading and extremely inexpert an example of self-deluding historigraphical naivety. But even so, this is, sadly, still most likely the above-average intellectual output that modern American colleges produce these days, such is the sorry state of entertaining History research solidified around age-old misconceptions.

If the Classical World (greek, roman and etruscan) were somehow "Europe" (even though this never occurred to them), and we know that "Europe" is a late Cultural term designed to express the unity of practices and views of the 18th century on the little geographic extension of Asia where a new spiritual entity (roughly founded at the core during the Holy Roman Empire period) took root, and has no relation with the (by then long dead) Mediterranean World of the Classicals (which quite freely inhabited southern Europe, Northern Africa and the Nearer East - nothing else) - then Europe would have to include Africa and Asia because the cultural center of the Greeks was only partially on the European side (on the other: Ionia and almost whole of the Black Sea region, including Asia Minor and Lebanon/Syria were wholly Greek and Hellenistic at one time). Egypt too became Greek but ONLY in the cities of former lower Egypt (like Alexandria).

The static and entirely ahistoric lifestyle of the Classicals makes a mockery of these preposterous notions about some sort of unity across the historic Time between the ancient Greeks and modern Westerners. After all these numerous works written about them - Western scholarship has not moved an inch away from the misconceptions derived from the Age of Romanticism!?
The only reason that the Western Europeans paid so much attention to this aspect of the general past on this Earth - is that their own spiritual awakening took place partially amid the ruins of another, extirpated, civilization (the Classical) and because the Western European spirituality was deeply historical from the beginning (as such it has FAR more in common with Ancient Egypt and China than with Greece) IT HAD TO bring itself to analyze, to feel and to day-dream about what it must have been like in the days of "Caesars and demagogues". Having love for the Past is beautiful and important - but it must not allow for the sight of historic reality to be lost in the process!

So much other scholarship that could and should be written about the Classical world is sorely lacking..Who has as yet written a book about the Classical religion? Who has as yet analyzed the Stoicism of Greeks (Chrysippus, Zeno) or the Stoicism of Romans (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca) and brought it in a relation with the present? But as long as the battle of Salamis preserved "the West" wow, how pertinent!! Such a poverty of thought and feeling is betrayed by these materialistic and linear views of the past that arrogantly claim direct causality over 1000's of years of human epochs!! Sad.

The petty little city-states with all of their mutual suspicions, conspiracies and situational dramas (where there is no place for a strong and soaring "I" of the Shakesperean dramas, witness the hapless, unpredictable momentary challenges of Odysseus or Oedipus) where the worship of bodily perfection to the exclusion of any spiritually-radiant soulful attributes of the individual (because these ancients could not fathom the idea of open Space (which they feared and detested - as one can deduce from their incessant crowding-out of spaces in the background)) and instead glorified the bodily so much so that they refused to use drills in sculpture work (for it would break surfaces rather than expose them) but instead used chisels to emphasize the love of the amorphous quality of matter with no energy.

Ultimately, there was no Care (as there was not even a name for distant horizons) of any deep sort among them, their states were minimal in organization (Alexander merely followed into the foosteps of the Greeks who already invaded the mighty and superbly organized Persian Empire) and they lived for the moment only (having no concern and no understanding for either the Past or the Future (although they thrilled themselves with curiosity about what will happen by consulting oracles)) - which is evidenced in the Attic statuary, the classic sculptures - which are deliberately made to seem unaware of the spectator (unlike those of the much later Christian period who seem to have the spirit in them that looks back at the admirers). CARPE DIEM pure and simple....

The best that the Classical intellectuals could ever produce in terms of historical works - was in the form of contemporary accounts (the best ones were those written by actual participants in the events discussed in their books, e.g. Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Polybius, Tacitus, etc.) because their shallow sense of the Past transmuted events of the past into an immediate mythical backdrop of an immutable historical canvass (which overshadowed any knowledge or judgment they would make about events distant in time from their own present). However, their entire being centered itself around the ability to master the momentary crisis of the present - hence Thucydides was an able general and administrator who could master the moment, hence his personal experience accounts possess all that vividness so typical of Classical writings (Pliny too).

This is the same Culture that deliberately destroyed or made short-lived all of its achievements prior to sometime around 500 to 600 BC, and most Roman-era accounts in Italy of events prior to 300 to 400 BC were largely a mythical mixture of fact/cult and legends. In Greece (namely Athens) the same was true for the period prior to around 500 BC (prior to the Persian Wars). Such was their limited gaze that the Westerners many centuries later understood the Classical History better than the Classicals ever did.

How can a world that Cares so much see a continuity with a world that cared so little? It must be a psychological delusion at bottom (and not merely due to a political propaganda message of "love thy democracy").

While one ought to respect and know the History of the Classical peoples - one ought to understand it in its proper Historical context IN ORDER TO DRAW TRUE VALUE FROM HISTORY - and not a boring, politically-correct conjecture that is at the same time ultimately pointless in this form presented by Mr. Hanson. I feel sorry for those readers who will draw false analogies between the past and present.