The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (Paperback)

I would agree with Donald Kagan who wrote, "The Other Greeks, is the most original and important contribution to an understanding of the ancient Greeks I have ever read." Here Victor Hanson explains how the rise of intensive agriculture and the independent farmer put an end to the Greek Dark Ages and he explains why this was an entirely new phenomenon in history. The rise of the polis, this egalitarian community of farmers now producing its own food, fighting its own wars, and making its own laws was something entirely novel in history. This Greek agrarianism became an ideology that infused Greek life with new energy and creativity.

Hanson details how the shift to private ownership and intensive cultivation by individual farmers gave birth to Western values and created the hoplite army. Relying heavily on ancient sources, as well as his personal knowledge of agriculture, he explains how and why the Greek yeoman created the hoplite army and how it functioned. During the polis period there was almost no miltary parasitism in most Greek city-states.

But Hanson does not view the polis through rose- colored lenses. He understands that the polis developed during a period when Greece was left alone by other powers around the Mediterranean world. He is aware of its innate conservatism and the fact that it was not "truly" democratic. The rise of Greek agrarianism, after all, did lead to an increase in slavery in the countryside. And lastly, Hanson deals with the decline of the polis in a world where the Greeks were forced to more and more deal with an opened society and international involvement. The Athenians made the most dramatic and remarkable attempt to adapt the polis culture to the needs of the new age, but, ultimately, the agrarian based polis culture was unfit to the requirements of the new world. The problems of new and wider citizenship and international economics found the polis system wanting. The Hellenistic Age and the conquests of Rome were based on the foundations of Greek culture, but in no way did they recreate the city-state life of ancient Greece. Power, wealth and excess were the hallmarks of the succeeding ages.

If there is any criticism of the book, and I almost hate to offer it considering the great achievement of Hanson, it is that the writing is often repetitious. The reader should be prepared for this. But, I cannot see how anyone can consider themselves well read in the history and culture of ancient Greek without reading this book and considering the points that Victor Hanson has made. A proper understanding of ancient Greece is impossible without a comprehension of what Hanson has given us. We all owe him much for these insights. This book belongs on the shelf of everyone with an interest in the ancient world and its insights will give you a yardstick by which to evaluate other times and cultures. After all, how people make their living is critical to understanding their time and culture.

Hanson's own oft-cited membership in the family-farmer class can be an asset, since he illustrates in his own voice the characteristic mindset that he also aims to describe: opinionated, pessimistic, and contemptuous of seemingly all non-agrarian institutions, customs, persons, and ways of thinking. But these mental characteristics are also very limiting. Hanson himself admits as much, applying such terms as "narrow" and "chauvinism" to his ancient predecessors; but to see and acknowledge such limitations in them is not necessarily to transcend them himself.

There are several other problems with the book as well. Hanson's passion for his subject all too often overwhelms his organizational planning for the book, as he reiterates favorite points in any and all contexts. He is also excessively given to braving out any inconvenient gap in the available evidence with an imperious "must have" or "could only have". And finally, the dots remain unconnected between the agrarian foundations and the enduring contributions of ancient Greek civilization. At one point, Hanson admits that the artistic and intellectual achievements that we call the "Greek miracle" only arose when and because Athens turned away from the agrarian ideal in various ways. At another, he lists twelve core values that western culture inherited from these ancient agrarians; and though the attribution is plausible enough in this case, the twelve listed values are not what we most treasure in the Greek heritage--except perhaps those among us who regard the Second Amendment as the crown jewel of the Bill of Rights.