Victor Davis Hanson

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About Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson is Professor of Greek and Director of the Classics Program at California State University, Fresno. He is the author or editor of many books, including Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (with John Heath, Free Press, 1998), and The Soul of Battle (Free Press, 1999). In 1992 he was named the most outstanding undergraduate teacher of classics in the nation.
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Books By Victor Davis Hanson
$18.99
Everyone has been taught that the Greek city-state is the ultimate source of the Western tradition in literature, philosophy, and politics. For generations, scholars have focused on the rise of the city-state and its brilliant cosmopolitan culture. Now Victor Hanson, the author of several studies of ancient warfare and agriculture, has written a book that will completely change our view of Greek society. For Hanson shows that the real "Greek revolution" was not the rise of a free and democratic urban culture, remarkable as this was, but the historic innovation of the independent family farm. The heroes of his book, therefore, are what he calls "the other Greeks" - the neglected freehold farmers, vinegrowers and herdsmen of ancient Greece who formed the backbone of Hellenic civilization. It was these tough-minded, pracitcal, and fiercely independent agrarians, Hanson contends, who gave Greek culture its distinctive emphasis on private property, constitutional government, contractual agreements, infantry warfare, and individual rights.
Hanson's reconstruction of ancient Greek farm life, informed by the hands-on knowledge of the subject (he is a fifth-generation California vine and fruit-grower), is fresh, comprehensive, and totally absorbing. But his detailed chronicle of the rise and tragic fall of the Greek city-state also helps us to grasp the implications of what may be the single most significant trend in American life today - namely, the imminent extinction of the family farm.
Since Thomas Jefferson Hanson points out, American democracy has been though to depend on the virtues that have traditionally been bred on the farm: self-reliance, honesty, skepticism, a healthy suspicion of urban sophistication, and a stern ethic of accountability, which, as the Greeks teach us, have always been the core values of democratic citizenship. Hanson rightly fears the consequences for American democracy when the family farm disappears, taking with it our last links to the agrarian roots of Western civilization.
Hanson's reconstruction of ancient Greek farm life, informed by the hands-on knowledge of the subject (he is a fifth-generation California vine and fruit-grower), is fresh, comprehensive, and totally absorbing. But his detailed chronicle of the rise and tragic fall of the Greek city-state also helps us to grasp the implications of what may be the single most significant trend in American life today - namely, the imminent extinction of the family farm.
Since Thomas Jefferson Hanson points out, American democracy has been though to depend on the virtues that have traditionally been bred on the farm: self-reliance, honesty, skepticism, a healthy suspicion of urban sophistication, and a stern ethic of accountability, which, as the Greeks teach us, have always been the core values of democratic citizenship. Hanson rightly fears the consequences for American democracy when the family farm disappears, taking with it our last links to the agrarian roots of Western civilization.
Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience
Nov 1, 2002
$37.69
Incorporating research found in ancient literary, iconographic, epigraphic, and archaeological sources, this book explores the experiences of the soldiers who conducted battle on the small plains of ancient Greece.
The volume, which draws on the accumulated expertise of nine American and British scholars, emphasizes the actual techniques of fighting and practical concerns as the use of commands, music in warfare, the use of "dog-tags", and ritual on the battlefield.
The volume, which draws on the accumulated expertise of nine American and British scholars, emphasizes the actual techniques of fighting and practical concerns as the use of commands, music in warfare, the use of "dog-tags", and ritual on the battlefield.
$9.99
With humor, lucidity, and unflinching rigor, the acclaimed authors of Who Killed Homer? and Plagues of the Mind unsparingly document the degeneration of a central, if beleaguered, discipline—classics—and reveal the root causes of its decline. Hanson, Heath, and Thornton point to academics themselves—their careerist ambitions, incessant self-promotion, and overspecialized scholarship, among other things—as the progenitors of the crisis, and call for a return to “academic populism,” an approach characterized by accessible, unspecialized writing, selfless commitment to students and teaching, and respect for the legacy of freedom and democracy that the ancients bequeathed to the West.
Other Formats:
Hardcover
Mexifornia: A State of Becoming
Jul 13, 2021
$18.04
Part history, part political analysis and part memoir, Mexifornia is an intensely personal work by one of our most important writers. Hanson is perhaps best known for his military histories and especially his social commentary about America and its response to terror after 9/11, but he is also a fifth-generation Californian who runs a family farm in the Central Valley and has written eloquent elegies on the decline of the small farm, Fields Without Dreams and The Land Was Everything. Like those books, Mexifornia ponders what has changed in California over the last quarter-century. This time, Hanson’s concern is how the state, the Southwest more broadly, and indeed the entire nation have been altered by America’s hemorrhaging borders, and how our disordered immigration policies are perhaps most harmful to the Mexican immigrants who come seeking a better life.
How The Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security (Encounter Broadsides Book 5)
Jan 1, 2010
$4.61
In this revealing broadside, Victor Davis Hanson explains how President Obama has imprinted his domestic ideology of victimhood onto a therapeutic, Carter-inspired foreign policy. In Obama’s vision, the United State renounces its role as a defender of the postwar order and instead becomes an agent of global change one that questions our existing system of defense, values, alliances, interests, and commerce.
In tactical terms, Obama believes that his 'hope-and-change' rhetoric and non-traditional background give him a moral authority abroad that will trump any inconsistency in U.S. foreign policy. But, as Hanson explains, at some future date, regional hegemons like Iran, Russia and China will demand even more acquiescence on the theory that the present government of the United States either will not object, or will do nothing concrete to stop them.
In tactical terms, Obama believes that his 'hope-and-change' rhetoric and non-traditional background give him a moral authority abroad that will trump any inconsistency in U.S. foreign policy. But, as Hanson explains, at some future date, regional hegemons like Iran, Russia and China will demand even more acquiescence on the theory that the present government of the United States either will not object, or will do nothing concrete to stop them.
Other Formats:
Paperback
Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece, Revised edition (Biblioteca Di Studi Antichi)
Oct 20, 1998
$21.99
The ancient Greeks were for the most part a rural, not an urban, society. And for much of the Classical period, war was more common than peace. Almost all accounts of ancient history assume that farming and fighting were critical events in the lives of the citizenry. Yet never before have we had a comprehensive modern study of the relationship between agriculture and warfare in the Greek world. In this completely revised edition of Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece, Victor Davis Hanson provides a systematic review of Greek agriculture and warfare and describes the relationship between these two important aspects of life in ancient communities. With careful attention to agronomic as well as military details, this well-written, thoroughly researched study reveals the remarkable resilience of those farmland communities.
In the past, scholars have assumed that the agricultural infrastructure of ancient society was often ruined by attack, as, for example, Athens was relegated to poverty in the aftermath of the Persian and later Peloponnesian invasions. Hanson's study shows, however, that in reality attacks on agriculture rarely resulted in famines or permanent agrarian depression. Trees and vines are hard to destroy, and grainfields are only briefly vulnerable to torching. In addition, ancient armies were rather inefficient systematic ravagers and instead used other tactics, such as occupying their enemies' farms to incite infantry battle. Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece suggests that for all ancient societies, rural depression and desolation came about from more subtle phenomena—taxes, changes in political and social structure, and new cultural values—rather than from destructive warfare.
In the past, scholars have assumed that the agricultural infrastructure of ancient society was often ruined by attack, as, for example, Athens was relegated to poverty in the aftermath of the Persian and later Peloponnesian invasions. Hanson's study shows, however, that in reality attacks on agriculture rarely resulted in famines or permanent agrarian depression. Trees and vines are hard to destroy, and grainfields are only briefly vulnerable to torching. In addition, ancient armies were rather inefficient systematic ravagers and instead used other tactics, such as occupying their enemies' farms to incite infantry battle. Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece suggests that for all ancient societies, rural depression and desolation came about from more subtle phenomena—taxes, changes in political and social structure, and new cultural values—rather than from destructive warfare.
Other Formats:
Paperback
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