Editing Victor Davis Hanson (section)

==Writing==
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Since 2004, Hanson has written a weekly column [[Print syndication|syndicated]] by [[Tribune Content Agency]],<ref name="tca">{{cite web|title=Victor Davis Hanson articles|url=https://tribunecontentagency.com/premium-content/opinion/international/victor-davis-hanson|website=Tribune Content Agency|access-date=October 9, 2018}}</ref> as well as a weekly column for ''[[National Review Online]]'' since 2001.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}  He was awarded the [[National Humanities Medal]] (2007) by President [[George W. Bush]], as well as the [[Eric Breindel Prize for opinion journalism]] (2002), and the Bradley Prize from the [[Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation]] in 2008.<ref name="fresno" />

Hanson's ''Warfare and Agriculture'' (Giardini 1983), his PhD thesis, argued that Greek warfare could not be understood apart from agrarian life in general and suggested that the modern assumption that agriculture was irrevocably harmed during classical wars was vastly overestimated. ''The Western Way of War'' (Alfred Knopf 1989) explored the combatants' experiences of [[ancient Greek battle]] and detailed the Hellenic foundations of later Western military practice.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?157856-1/the-land-everything Presentation by Hanson on ''The Land Was Everything'', June 22, 2000], [[C-SPAN]] |video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?176827-9/mexifornia-state-becoming Interview with Hanson on ''Mexifornia'', May 31, 2003], [[C-SPAN]]| video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?177866-1/mexifornia-state-becoming ''Booknotes'' interview with Hanson on ''Mexifornia'', September 28, 2003], [[C-SPAN]] | video4 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?179330-1/ripples-battle Presentation by Hanson on ''Ripples of Battle'', October 27, 2003], [[C-SPAN]] | video5 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?189156-1/a-war-other-peloponnesian-war Presentation by Hanson on ''A War Like No Other'', September 7, 2005], [[C-SPAN]] | video6 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?190269-3/a-war-other-interview Presentation by Hanson on ''A War Like No Other'', December 10, 2005], [[C-SPAN]] | video7 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?172403-1/an-autumn-war Presentation by Hanson on ''An Autumn of War'', August 26, 2002], [[C-SPAN]]| video8 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?293853-1/the-father-all Presentation by Hanson on ''The Father of Us All'', May 16, 2010], [[C-SPAN]]}}
''The Other Greeks'' (The Free Press 1995) argued that the emergence of a unique middling agrarian class explains the ascendance of the [[Greek city-state]] and its singular values of consensual government, sanctity of private property, civic militarism, and individualism. In ''Fields Without Dreams'' (The Free Press 1996, winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award) and ''The Land Was Everything'' (The Free Press 2000, a ''Los Angeles Times'' notable book of the year), Hanson lamented the decline of family farming and rural communities and the loss of agrarian voices in [[American democracy]]. ''The Soul of Battle'' (The Free Press 1999) traced the careers of [[Epaminondas]], the Theban liberator, [[William Tecumseh Sherman]], and [[George S. Patton]] in arguing that democratic warfare's strengths are best illustrated in short, intense, and spirited marches to promote consensual rule but bog down otherwise during long occupations or more conventional static battle.

In ''Mexifornia'' (Encounter 2003), a personal memoir about growing up in rural California and an account of immigration from Mexico, Hanson predicted that illegal immigration would soon reach crisis proportions unless legal, measured, and diverse immigration was restored, as well as the traditional melting-pot values of integration, assimilation, and intermarriage.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Commentary: 'Mexifornia' is a Tragedy in the Making|last=Hanson|first=Victor Davis|date=29 June 2003|work=Los Angeles Times|id={{ProQuest|<!-- insert ProQuest data here -->}}}}</ref>

''Ripples of Battle'' (Doubleday 2003) chronicled how the cauldron of battle affects combatants' later literary and artistic work, as its larger influence ripples for generations, affecting art, literature, culture, and government. In ''A War Like No Other'' (Random House 2005, a ''New York Times'' notable book of the year), a history of the [[Peloponnesian War]], Hanson offered an alternative history, arranged by methods of fighting ([[triremes]], [[hoplites]], cavalry, sieges, etc.) in concluding that the conflict marked a brutal watershed event for the Greek city-states. ''The Savior Generals'' (Bloomsbury 2013) followed the careers of five great generals ([[Themistocles]], [[Belisarius]], [[William Tecumseh Sherman|Sherman]], [[Matthew Ridgway|Ridgway]], [[David Petraeus|Petraeus]]) and argued that rare qualities in leadership emerge during hopeless predicaments that only rare individuals can salvage.<ref>{{Cite journal|date=March 15, 2013|title=The Savior Generals|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/victor-davis-hanson/the-savior-generals/|journal=Kirkus Reviews|isbn=978-1-60819-163-5|last1=Hanson|first1=Victor Davis}}</ref>

''The End of Sparta'' (Bloomsbury 2011) is a novel about a small community of [[Thespiae|Thespian]] farmers who join the great march of Epaminondas (369/370 BC) to the heart of the [[Peloponnese]] to destroy [[Spartan]] hegemony, free the [[Messenian]] [[helots]], and spread democracy in the Peloponnese.

Hanson has edited several collections of essays, including (''Hoplites'', Routledge 1991), ''Bonfire of the Humanities'' (with B. Thornton and J. Heath, ISI 2001), and ''Makers of Ancient Strategy'' (Princeton 2010), as well as a number of his own collected articles, such as ''An Autumn of War'' [2002 Anchor], ''Between War and Peace'' [Anchor 2004], and ''The Father of Us All'' [Bloomsbury 2010]. He has written chapters for works such as the ''Cambridge History of War'', and the ''Cambridge History of Ancient Warfare''.

===''Carnage and Culture''===
{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?166237-1/carnage-culture Presentation by Hanson on ''Carnage and Culture'', September 15, 2001], [[C-SPAN]]|}}
Hanson wrote the 2001 book ''Carnage and Culture'' (Doubleday), published in Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries as ''Why the West Has Won'', in which he argued that the military dominance of [[Western culture|Western civilization]], beginning with the ancient Greeks, results from certain fundamental aspects of [[Western Hemisphere|Western]] culture, such as consensual government, a tradition of self-critique, secular rationalism, religious tolerance, individual freedom, free expression, free markets, and individualism. Hanson's emphasis on cultural exception rejects racial explanations for Western military preeminence and disagrees with the environmental or geographical determinist explanations such as those put forth by [[Jared Diamond]] in ''[[Guns, Germs, and Steel]]'' (1997).<ref>Victor Davis Hanson
[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214502/decline-and-fall-victor-davis-hanson Decline And Fall: A review of ''Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed''],  ''National Review Magazine'', May 20, 2005</ref>{{non-primary source needed|date=October 2023}}

The American military officer [[Robert L. Bateman]], in a 2007 article on the [[Media Matters for America]] website, criticized Hanson's thesis and argued that Hanson's point about Western armies preferring to seek out a decisive battle of annihilation is rebutted by the [[Second Punic War]] in which [[Roman Republic|Roman]] attempts to annihilate the [[Carthaginians]] instead led to the Carthaginians annihilating the Romans at the [[Battle of Cannae]].<ref name="Bateman">{{cite web | last =  Bateman | first = Robert | title = Bateman on Hanson, Round 1: Cannae, 2 August 216 B.C. | publisher = Media Matters | date= October 29, 2007 | url = http://mediamatters.org/research/2007/10/29/bateman-on-hanson-round-1-cannae-2-august-216-b/141508#2 | access-date = 2016-08-24}}</ref> Bateman argued that Hanson was wrong about Western armies' common preferences in seeking out a battle of annihilation and argued that the Romans defeated the Carthaginians only via the [[Fabian strategy]] of keeping their armies in being and not engaging [[Hannibal]] in battle.<ref name="Bateman"/> In a response published on his personal website, Hanson argued that Bateman had misunderstood and misrepresented his thesis. Hanson stated that in the Second Punic War, the Romans initially sought out decisive battles but were reluctantly forced to resort to a Fabian strategy after several defeats at the hands of a tactical genius until they had rebuilt their military capacity, when they ultimately defeated Hannibal in decisive battles. He also said that since the Carthaginians themselves had adopted many "Western" methods of warfare from the Greeks, Hannibal, too, was keen to seek decisive battles.<ref>{{cite web | last =  Hanson | first = Victor Davis | title = Squaring Off: Part II | publisher = Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers | date= November 5, 2007 | url = http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=5416 | access-date = 2016-08-24}}</ref>

===United States education and classical studies===
Hanson co-authored the book ''[[Who Killed Homer?|Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom]]'' with John Heath in 1998. The book explores the issue of how classical education has declined in the US and what might be done to restore it to its former prominence. That is important, according to Hanson and Heath, because knowledge of classical Greece and Rome is necessary for a full understanding of Western culture. To begin a discussion along those lines, the authors state, "The answer to why the world is becoming Westernized goes all the way back to the wisdom of the Greeks—reason enough why we must not abandon the study of our heritage."<ref>Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath, ''Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom'' (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001), p. 28.</ref>

The political scientist [[Francis Fukuyama]] reviewed ''Who Killed Homer?'' favorably in ''[[Foreign Affairs]]'' and wrote that, "The great thinkers of the Western tradition—from [[Hobbes]], Burke, and [[Hegel]] to Weber and [[Nietzsche]] (who was trained as a classical [[philologist]])—were so thoroughly steeped in Greek thought that they scarcely needed to refer back to original texts for quotations. This tradition has come under fire from two camps, one postmodernist that seeks to deconstruct the classics on the grounds of gender, race, and class, and the other pragmatic and career-minded that asks what value the classics have in a computer-driven society. The authors' defense of a traditionalist approach to the classics is worthy."<ref>{{cite magazine|title=Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1998-07-01/who-killed-homer-demise-classical-education-and-recovery-greek|magazine=Foreign Affairs}}</ref>

The classicists [[Victoria Cech]] and [[Joy Connolly]] found ''Who Killed Homer?'' to have considerable pitfalls. Reviews of the book have noted several problems with the authors' perception of classical culture. According to Cech, "One example is the relation of the individual to the state and the 'freedom' of belief or of inquiry in each. Socrates and Jesus were put to death by their respective states for articulating inconvenient doctrines. In Sparta, where the population of citizens (male) were carefully socialized in a military system, no one seems to have differed from the majority enough to merit the death penalty. But these differences are not sorted out by the authors, for ''their mission is to build an ideal structure of classical attitudes by which to reveal our comparative flaws'', and their point is more what is wrong with us than what was right with Athens. I contend that Hanson and Heath are actually comparing modern academia not to the ancient seminal cultures but to the myth that arose about them over the last couple of millennia."<ref>{{cite web|title=Who Killed Homer?|url=http://mtprof.msun.edu/Win1999/Cech.html|publisher=The Montana Professor}}</ref> According to Connolly, Professor of Classics at [[New York University]] as of 2016,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://classics.as.nyu.edu/object/JoyConnolly.html|title=NYU Classics: Joy Connolly|access-date=September 4, 2016}}</ref> "Throughout history, the authors say, women have never enjoyed equal rights and responsibilities. At least in Greece, 'the veiled, mutilated, and secluded were not the norm' (p. 57). Why waste time, then, as feminist scholarship does, 'merely demarcating the exact nature of the sexism of the Greeks and the West' (p. 102)? From their point of view, in fact, the real legacy of feminism is the destruction of the values of family and community."<ref>{{cite journal| author = Connolly, Joy | date = 1998-05-13 | title=Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath, Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom | format = book review | journal=[[Bryn Mawr Classical Review]] | url=http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1998/98.5.13.html| access-date = 2025-02-12 }}</ref>