The World of the Coliseum

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media 

I woke up one morning not long ago, and noticed that the world that I was born into no longer exists. It was as if I had once lived in Republican Italy, took a nap, and awoke to the Roman 472px-Carl_Gustav_Carus_-_Das_Kolosseum_in_einer_MondnachtEmpire, AD 200.

Latifundia

Let me explain. All the farms in these environs that I grew up with — 40-80 acres with a farmhouse and family — have simply vanished.

Where did they go?

I suppose when I meet someone with 5,000 acres that I am supposed to think that spread represents the old, and now recombined, 100 50-acre farms under new management. Yet where did the 100 farm households go — and what replaced them?

When I ride around the rural landscape, I see the old skeletons of farmhouses; but they are mostly rented to farm workers.  Are the social circumstances of renting a house and working on a 5,000-acre farm different from 100 agrarian households doing it — in terms of local PTA, Little League, the regional hospital board, or city council?

I leave it to you to decide. I can attest only that in terms of agricultural productivity, today’s 8,000-acre almond operations look far more efficient, up to date, and savvy than what 100 80-acre almond orchards used to seem like: old barn, clunky tractors in the yard, kids out in the orchard not up on the latest scientific approaches to fertilization, mom doing the books in a way the computerized corporate whiz kid would laugh at, tight-fisted gramps hobbling about looking for loose tire-popping nails in the alleyway while giving sermons about avoiding a mortgage. Continue reading “The World of the Coliseum”

The Glue Holding America Together

As it fragments into various camps, the country is being held together by a common popular culture.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

By a.d. 200, the Roman Republic was a distant memory. Few citizens of the global Roman Empire even knew of their illustrious ancestors like Scipio or Cicero. Millions no longer spoke Latin. Italian emperors were a rarity. There were no national elections. Continue reading “The Glue Holding America Together”

The Stagnant Mediterranean

Socialism and Islamism don’t foster a climate of economic growth and security.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

From the heights of Gibraltar you can see Africa about nine miles away to the south — and gaze eastward on the seemingly endless Mediterranean, which stretches 2,400 miles to Asia.  Continue reading “The Stagnant Mediterranean”

Persecution Myth? How the Present Explains the Past

by Raymond Ibrahim

Originally published by World Magazine

One of the traditional purposes for studying History has been to learn from it, to see how past events can shed light on the present. Continue reading “Persecution Myth? How the Present Explains the Past”

American Recessional

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Republicans and Democrats are blaming one another for impending cuts to the defense budget brought about by sequestration. Continue reading “American Recessional”

Why Do Societies Give Up?

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Why do once-successful societies ossify and decline?

Hundreds of reasons have been adduced for the fall of Rome and the end of the Old Regime in 18th-century France. Continue reading “Why Do Societies Give Up?”

Strangers in a Stranger Land

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Trostky-ization

In ancient Rome, when the emperor or an especially distasteful elite died, his image on stone and in bronze was removed. And by decree there arose adamnatio memoriae, a holistic effort to erase away his entire prior existence. Continue reading “Strangers in a Stranger Land”

Appeasement Bode War Not Peace

by Terry Scambray

New Oxford Review

A review of The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens, Munich, and Obama’s America by Bruce S. Thornton. (Encounter Books, 2011 pp. 283) Continue reading “Appeasement Bode War Not Peace”

Europe is Warning Us

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

Rome — If Americans think fuel and food prices are high, they should try Europe, where both can be nearly double those in the United States, while salaries are often lower. Continue reading “Europe is Warning Us”

What We Might Remember This Memorial Day

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online 

The world is a better place because Adolf Hitler did not preserve his conquest of the European continent, and because the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere of Hideki Tojo and his militarists imploded at Midway, Guadalcanal, and Okinawa. Continue reading “What We Might Remember This Memorial Day”