by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers When I was young, my parents in the early 1960s told me to ignore stories about the “Jews.” Of course, out here in rural California, I never met such distant persons, but only heard about them from disgruntled farmers (who, I wager, had never met any either). Share This
by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online What exactly does democracy — “people power” — really mean? Even the Greeks who invented this peculiar institution were not quite sure. Was it just rule by a majority vote? Or did it include mechanisms and subsidies to ensure the participation of the poor? Or to protect the …
Putting to rest the Left’s Iraq deceptions. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online It has now been almost a year since the liberation of Iraq, the fury of the antiwar rallies, and the publicized hectoring of Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Sean Penn, and other assorted conspiracy freaks — and we have enough evidence to …
by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers In a recent review of Donald Kagan’s The Peloponnesian War, and my Autumn of War, (“Theatres of War: Why the battles over ancient Athens still rage” New Yorker Magazine, [January 12, 2004]), the classicist Daniel Mendelsohn says that I believe that it is immoral to suggest defeat can be seen as victory: “The …
Grammatical Gymnastics at the New Yorker Magazine Read More »
What to remember come November. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The great accomplishment of the Truman administration was containment — especially the creation of a policy to ensure that Soviet Communism did not enter Western Europe. Critics on the right once argued over “Who lost China and Eastern Europe?” Share This
When you can’t face it in battle. by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers There is a growing consensus that it is near suicide to face the United States in a conventional war. Both the long history of western warfare, and a variety of recent encounters—whether in the Falklands, the Gulf, or the Middle East—remind us …
Hubris and the law of unintended consequences. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Irony, paradox, hubris, and nemesis are all Greek words. They reflect an early Western fascination with natural, immutable laws of destiny, perhaps akin to something like the eastern idea of karma — that excess and haughtiness can set off a chain …
Trying to believe in the make-believe world of the present age. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online After listening to a variety of American, Middle Eastern, and European pundits, I wish that their understanding of the way the world works were true — or at least even that they believed it to be true. …