{"id":1253,"date":"2010-09-20T02:19:54","date_gmt":"2010-09-20T02:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=1253"},"modified":"2013-03-07T02:20:48","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T02:20:48","slug":"a-sleeper-reply-a-reply-to-martial-flaw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-sleeper-reply-a-reply-to-martial-flaw\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sleeper Reply: A Reply to “Martial Flaw”"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n

Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n

From time to time I post replies to critics. Here is a letter I sent to the journal\u00a0Democracy<\/em>in reply to a quite strange rant from one Jim Sleeper about\u00a0Makers of Ancient Strategy<\/em>, which I recently edited for Princeton University Press. The book was about the influence of ancient strategy on the contemporary world, and had nothing to do with politics, ancient or modern. But somehow Mr. Sleeper skipped the book written and focused on its editor.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim Sleeper\u2019s review essay\u00a0\u201cMartial Flaw\u201d in the journal Democracy<\/a>\u00a0is not an analysis of\u00a0Makers of Ancient Strategy<\/em>. It is an extended, though odd, personal attack on the editor, whom, he accuses of using the \u201cclassics as a cudgel to denigrate liberalism as a carrier of unprecedented options.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet because what Mr. Sleeper writes is inaccurate and misdirected, the unfortunate result is that the review says nothing much about the book per se, little factual about its editor, but a great deal about the angst of Jim Sleeper.<\/p>\n

His vocabulary is not one of a dispassionate reviewer, but devolves into caricature. Thus we learn that the editor of\u00a0Makers of Ancient Strategy<\/em>\u00a0is an advocate for \u201cunilateralist U.S. hegemony\u201d and \u201ca geyser of vituperations.\u201d Sleeper apparently wanted to prove that an apolitical scholarly book on the ancient world \u201creflects conservative polemics\u201d by \u201cshowing how Athenians, Romans, and, even before them, Persians extended their sway and coped with challenges to it in ways that American grand strategists can learn from.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when he finds no evidence that I am trying to channel the ancients to the service of American grand strategists, Sleeper laments that, \u201cMany of the book\u2019s precedents point in directions Hanson doesn\u2019t want to go.\u201d That self-contradiction is thematic.<\/p>\n

The absence of any indications in the book of my own political leanings disturbs Sleeper to such a degree that he sighs that in the editor\u2019s introduction that I advise \u201ccagily that \u201c[r]ather than offering political assessments of modern military leaders\u2019 policies, we instead hope that knowledge of the ancient world will remind us of all of the parameters of available choices \u2014 and their consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus as stated, when I offer an initial disinterested synopsis of a contributor\u2019s essay, Sleeper again turns to further anger at what he has not found: \u201cCiting the book\u2019s first chapter by Thomas Holland, the British historian of ancient Persia, Hanson tells us: \u201cImperial powers\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009create an entire mythology about the morality, necessity, or inevitability of conquest. Their narratives are every bit as important to military planning as men and mat\u00e9riel in the field.\u201d Fair enough, but one can\u2019t help ruing Hanson\u2019s own efforts to help Bush craft a grand narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

In final exasperation at discovering no partisanship, Sleeper concludes that the book really is an effective scholarly account of ancient strategic dilemmas \u2014 although that leads unfortunately to unpleasant results: \u201cThis collection makes Hanson look good\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

For the record, Princeton University Press asked if I would edit a prequel to its well-known\u00a0Makers of Modern Strategy<\/em>. The proposal was approved by a university press board, on the recommendation of two anonymous outside reviewers. There was no agenda of any kind in the book, since the political affinities of the scholars were irrelevant to the purpose of reviewing strategic thinking of all sorts from the Persian wars to the fall of Rome.<\/p>\n

The contributors were selected on the joint recommendations of PUP and myself, based on both their chronological diversity and prior scholarship in military history. Two anonymous readers again reviewed the finished submitted manuscript. Their positive recommendations for publication were again approved by the university board \u2014 the necessary prerequisite for publication.<\/p>\n

Because the anthology does not support what Sleeper wishes to write, the review turns into a personal screed against the editor \u2014 and at one point even his late parents. He calls my farm residence and work there the \u201cstaging of Hanson\u2019s rusticity.\u201d Because at a stage in our lives, my mother was appointed a judge, my father an administrator, and I have taught, Mr. Sleeper apparently sees all that as proof none us continued to drive a tractor, take out crop loans, or peddle fruit after work, on weekends, or in the summer, or did so to find outside income to save the farm where we lived \u2014 although off-farm work is now the norm in much of American farming these days. Sleeper adds further proof that I am \u201cstaging\u201d farming because I now commute in my late fifties from my farm to work at the Hoover Institution, was awarded the Bradley prize, and, worse still, President Bush and Vice president Cheney supposedly at one point read and liked\u00a0Carnage and Culture<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Sleeper alleges in a review on ancient strategy that, \u201cHanson was in the White House in January 2005, working with the Cold War historian and would-be grand strategist John Lewis Gaddis to help craft Bush\u2019s second inaugural address (both men received National Humanities Medals from Bush).\u201d For the record, that is simply untrue. A diverse group of four historians was asked to offer historical perspectives on and comparisons with past wars in their own theaters of expertise. At no point in that formal one-hour meeting that I attended did I hear anyone asked to \u201chelp craft\u201d a proposed presidential speech. Presidents Clinton and Obama likewise have asked historians for perspectives on history and contemporary foreign policy, and there seems nothing sinister about the practice.<\/p>\n

The ad hominem attacks extend to some of the contributors. Again, because Sleeper hunts carefully, but ends up finding nothing political, much less partisan, in the volume, he concludes that contributors must be \u201ctweaking\u201d me. Of one contributor\u2019s conclusions that please Sleeper, he imagines that \u201cshe \u201cdeclines to do what I suspect Hanson hoped\u201d.<\/p>\n

Again, this is not a review of the book written, but, in passing, of the book suspected and imagined, as part of a personal attack on the editor. In exasperation, Sleeper finally cites the affiliations of just two contributors (and only two) whom he suspects are conservatives \u2014 \u201cfellow Iraq War zealot Donald Kagan\u201d and Barry Strauss \u201ca neoconservative professor of classics at Cornell.\u201d<\/p>\n

He writes that my account of the preemptive war of Epaminondas is offered as proof of the wisdom of the Iraq war, but again he can find no evidence that I wrote that. In fact, I wrote that I didn\u2019t know until the final verdict is in (e.g., \u201cHistory alone will judge, in the modern instance, as it has in the ancient, whether such an expensive preemptive gamble ever justified the cost.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In Sleeper\u2019s review of\u00a0Makers of Ancient Strategy<\/em>, the reader will learn little about the book\u2019s essays, but instead be told that the editor works at the Hoover Institution, his family has supposedly not farmed where he lives, the occupations of his late mother and father, notes about the Bradley Prize, the National Humanities Medal, and political commentary published elsewhere in National Review and other journals, a White House visit, and the political affiliations of three of ten contributors \u2014 all offered amid Mr. Sleeper\u2019s Orwellian warnings about the dangers of mixing politics with scholarship.<\/p>\n

An angry Jim Sleeper offered up to\u00a0Democracy<\/em>\u00a0an extended personal obsession, not a scholarly review of\u00a0Makers of Ancient Strategy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Victor Davis Hanson
\nSelma, California<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers From time to time I post replies to critics. Here is a letter I sent to the journal\u00a0Democracyin reply to a quite strange rant from one Jim Sleeper about\u00a0Makers of Ancient Strategy, which I recently edited for Princeton University Press. The book was about the influence of ancient strategy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[515],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-kd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5413,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/squaring-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":1253,"position":0},"title":"Squaring Off","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Hanson replies to criticisms of Ltc. Bateman by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media I\u00a0used to have a great deal of respect for the\u00a0Chronicle of Higher Education. But on their recent gossipy blog, they advertise a recent hit-piece by one Robert Bateman of my\u00a0Carnage and Culture, that is now appearing on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "November 2007"","block_context":{"text":"November 2007","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2007\/november-2007\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6067,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/persecution-myth-how-the-present-explains-the-past\/","url_meta":{"origin":1253,"position":1},"title":"Persecution Myth? How the Present Explains the Past","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 22, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"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.\u00a0 This is possible assuming the history presented is true. 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We are just plain lucky the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5135,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-review-of-warriors-into-traders\/","url_meta":{"origin":1253,"position":3},"title":"A Review of “Warriors into Traders”","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 9, 1999","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Journal of Interdisciplinary History Warriors into Traders: The Power of the Market in Early Greece. By David W. Tandy (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997) 296 pp. $45.00 The rise of more than 1,000 Greek poleis from the obscurity of the Dark Ages (c. 1100-800 B.C.)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1647,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-ancient-world-as-it-was\/","url_meta":{"origin":1253,"position":4},"title":"The Ancient World As It Was","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Cody Carlson The Deseret News Review of\u00a0The End of Sparta\u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson, Bloomsbury Press, 2011 Having written extensively on the history of ancient Greece, it is no surprise that classics professor Victor Davis Hanson would set his first novel in that era. His new book,\u00a0The End of Sparta\u00a0is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Reviews","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/opinion\/reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4524,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/gay-old-times\/","url_meta":{"origin":1253,"position":5},"title":"Gay Old Times?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Oliver Stone perpetuates a classical myth by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Magazine The consensus about Oliver Stone's\u00a0Alexander\u00a0is that the film's splashy gay motifs could not overcome the stilted dialogue, ludicrous Irish-brogue and Count Dracula accents, and excruciating minutes of dead screen time devoted to model-like poses, secretive eye contact,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2004"","block_context":{"text":"December 2004","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2004\/december-2004\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1254,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1253\/revisions\/1254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}