The Last Generation of the West and the Thin Strand of Civilization

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media 

Had the Greeks lost at Salamis, Western civilization might easily have been strangled in its adolescence. Had Hitler not invaded the Soviet Union, the European democracies would have probably remained overwhelmed. And had the Japanese just sidestepped the Philippines and Pearl Harbor, as they gobbled up the orphaned Pacific colonies of a defunct Western Europe, the Pacific World as we know it now might be a far different, far darker place. Continue reading “The Last Generation of the West and the Thin Strand of Civilization”

The Launch of the Freedom Academy

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media 

Today launches the Freedom Academy®, a project some 18 months in the making. In the FA-homepage-9_23_13_01present age, we need a meeting place where people can rediscover what freedom entails and appreciate the origins and role of liberty. The majority of Americans yearn for a rebirth of these values that have sustained Western civilization, and birthed the American experiment. Such reverence for our heritage and origins is why we at PJ Media will offer a variety of ways to understand our present dilemmas through an appreciation of past ideas and events.

Despite all the contemporary upheavals in Washington—whether over the government shutdown, debt-ceiling increase, or Obamacare—we can be certain that history remains both our gateway to the future and our window to the past. The political strife we are witnessing is not new, but a continuance of the age-old struggle between the tragic and therapeutic views of the human condition, over the collision of history and humanities with the social sciences, and the liberty of the individual pitted against the coercive power of the collective. Continue reading “The Launch of the Freedom Academy”

Brave New World

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

The Revolutions We Missed

Sometimes societies just plod along, oblivious that the world is being reinvented right under their noses. In 2000, one never saw pedestrians bumping into themselves as they glued their noses to iPhones. Continue reading “Brave New World”

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?”

California: The Road Warrior Is Here

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Where’s Mel Gibson When You Need Him?

George Miller’s 1981 post-apocalyptic film The Road Warrior [1] envisioned an impoverished world of the future. Tribal groups fought over what remained of a destroyed Western world of law, technology, and mass production. Survival went to the fittest — or at least those who could best scrounge together the artifacts of a long gone society somewhat resembling the present West. Continue reading “California: The Road Warrior Is Here”

‘Exceptional’ America

by Victor Davis Hanson

Defining Ideas

Accepting inevitable national decline is the new pastime of both the media and government elite. Some of the pessimism revolves around current federal financial insolvency. Continue reading “‘Exceptional’ America”

“Nature Fakery”

by Bruce S. Thornton

Defining Ideas

At the turn of the twentieth century, President Theodore Roosevelt became embroiled in a public controversy over how some writers and naturalists described the natural world in overly anthropomorphic and sentimental terms. Continue reading ““Nature Fakery””

How Marxism Killed Keystone

by Bruce S. Thornton

FrontPage Magazine

The global warming apocalypse and its Elmer Gantry, Al Gore, may have faded from public view lately, but that old-time green religion is still making mischief. President Obama has just delayed until after November’s election a decision on the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline. Continue reading “How Marxism Killed Keystone”

So Why Read Anymore?

by Victor Davis Hanson

PJ Media

Is Reading Good Books Over?

There is great “truth and beauty” in Homer’s Iliad [1], but I would not try to make his sale on such platitudes. Continue reading “So Why Read Anymore?”

Defense Spending Is a ‘Shovel Ready’ Investment

by Victor Davis Hanson

Tribune Media Services

President Obama has just ordered massive cutbacks in defense spending, eventually to total some $500 billion. There is plenty of fat in a Pentagon budget that grew after 9/11, but such slashing goes way too far. Continue reading “Defense Spending Is a ‘Shovel Ready’ Investment”