by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
Gates Close at Dusk
At about dusk, I close two large metal gates to my driveways. The security lights come on, and I enjoy intramural life. Continue reading “Beautifully Medieval California”
Tag: Greeks
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?”
Messengers, Messages, and Voters: Part 2
by Bruce Thornton
FrontPage
At their retreat in Williamsburg a few weeks ago House Republicans continued the post-mortem of November’s debacle. A big topic was how to better market the Republican brand. A Domino’s Pizza executive gave “a well-received talk about selling a damaged brand to a modern audience,” asNational Review Online reported. Continue reading “Messengers, Messages, and Voters: Part 2”
War’s Paradoxes II: From the Peloponnesian War to ‘Leading From Behind’
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
1. Why Did Athens Lose the Peloponnesian War?
It really did not in a way: Athens no more lost the war than Hitler did the Second World War between September 1939 and May 1941. Instead it was defeated in a series of wars (only later seen as elements of one long “Peloponnesian War”) against a litany of enemies — none in isolation necessarily fatal, all in succession and ultimately together lethal. Continue reading “War’s Paradoxes II: From the Peloponnesian War to ‘Leading From Behind’”
War’s Paradoxes II: From the Peloponnesian War to ‘Leading From Behind’
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
1. Why Did Athens Lose the Peloponnesian War?
It really did not in a way: Athens no more lost the war than Hitler did the Second World War between September 1939 and May 1941. Continue reading “War’s Paradoxes II: From the Peloponnesian War to ‘Leading From Behind’”
War Is Like Rust
by Victor Davis Hanson
Tribune Media Services
War seems to come out of nowhere, like rust that suddenly pops up on iron after a storm.
Throughout history, we have seen that war Continue reading “War Is Like Rust”
Modern Wisdom from Ancient Minds
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
The Tragic View
Of course we can acquire a sense of man’s predictable fragilities from religion, the Judeo-Christian view in particular, or from the school of hard knocks. Losing a grape crop to rain a day before harvest, or seeing a warehouse full of goods go up in smoke the week before their sale, or being diagnosed with leukemia on the day of a long-awaited promotion convinces even the most naïve optimist that the world sort of works in tragic ways that we must accept, but do not fully understand. Continue reading “Modern Wisdom from Ancient Minds”
Do We Believe Anymore?
by Victor Davis Hanson
PJ Media
Our Age of Disbelief
We live in an age of disbelief, in which citizens increasingly do not believe what their government says or, for that matter, what is accepted as true by popular culture. Continue reading “Do We Believe Anymore?”
Are We Becoming Medieval?
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
A tourist mecca like Venice now boasts that it dreams of breaking away from an insolvent Italy. Similarly Barcelona, and perhaps the Basques and the Catalonians in general, claim they want no part of a bankrupt Spain. Scotland fantasizes about becoming separate from Great Britain. The Greek Right dreams of a 19th-century Greece without Asian and African immigrants who do not look Greek. Continue reading “Are We Becoming Medieval?”
The New Reactionaries
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
Starting in the 1930s and continuing after the war, the Democrats offered a liberal critique of, or perhaps enhancement to, the Republican vision of rugged individualism. A modern American state now had the capital and the moral ambition to smooth the rougher edges of capitalism by insisting on unemployment and disability insurance, a 40-hour week, overtime pay, and what we now associate with the social safety net. Such entitlements, along with a rapidly growing economy, redefined poverty — so much so that whereas in 1930 malnourishment was endemic among the poor, by 2000 obesity was far more injurious to the nation’s collective health. Continue reading “The New Reactionaries”