Cultured Travel Guide Books - Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power |
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 904.7
EAN: 9780385500524
ISBN: 0385500521
Label: Doubleday
Manufacturer: Doubleday
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: 2001-08-14
Publisher: Doubleday
Release Date: 2001-08-14
Studio: Doubleday |
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Summary: Carnage and Culture
Comment: Excellent book. Details how democracy has evolved and makes it clear that is the most natural moral and successful political culture.
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Summary: The military and intellectual historian of our time
Comment: On 9/15/01, I turned on C-Span and discovered Victor Davis Hanson who reassured me, the Fresno bookshop visitors and the TV audience that we would win our battle against Islamic terrorism.
I immediately bought and read CARNAGE AND CULTURE, then I bought his superb SOUL OF BATTLE which reaffirmed my view of General George Patton and introduced me to General Sherman who fought much like Patton: always on the move, cutting off the enemy from supply rather than directly engaging them, which saved lives on both sides, while avoiding the deadly disease which is part and parcel of trench warfare.
Since then, Victor Davis Hanson's columns (he writes a daily column for 3 different internet venues, one of which is pajamas media) are the ones I first read each day.
All my life I searched for a great intellectual historian. VDH is it.
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Summary: How the west has won
Comment: Victor David Hanson as always writes a work that states facts without ignoring humanity. This is properly the story of why the western way of warfare is so effective.
It is important to note that he doesn't paint the west as saints but argues that the nature of western thought and civilization in the past and in the present has given western arms the edge over. He points to the flexibility of the west in both thought and action and how that has produced innovation that has made the difference from the seas off midway and Greece to Zululand and the Halls of Montezuma.
Hanson doesn't paint a pretty picture, his images of the Persian dead washing up on the coast and/or drowning is not for the squeamish. He presents war with all the horrors that come with it, but that is not the theme of the book, it is why the western way of warfare is by and large the winning way. In this he does the trick. It gives the why more than the how and in that sense is a real change from many writings of the tales that are being told.
One of the most intelligent books you will ever read, buy it.
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Summary: Hanson's Thesis is Very Relevant
Comment: Classics Professor Victor Davis Hanson arguement in this book is the characteristics of Western Civilization, namely individual rights, capitalism, rationalism, dissent, and military discipline have lead to it's survival and dominance of the world. It is an unpopular one academically, since it asserts the "oppressors" of the world as having a reason for why they're on top. Hanson dismisses Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" in a matter of a paragraph, and makes his case most eloquently.
The basic idea, applied to our current situation in the world, tells me the War on Terrorism is ours to lose.
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Summary: The Worst Kind of Mythology
Comment: I read a nice portion of this book for a Conflict in Western Civilization class. I dropped that class before it even started. Hanson is the worst kind of propagandist. Unknowledgeable, young soldiers will die for the lies he lays out in this book. The education provided by the United States school systems, including high schools as well as university and college levels, works just fine. It produces people who will die for lies. The myth that academia is a purely 'liberal' institution is in long need of a vacation. Same thing goes for the media. It would be great to hear Hanson try to explain why western warfare is so great to a Vietnam vet with an amputated leg. Especially if the soldier had the misfortune to have been born with low socio-economic status. It takes a 'chickenhawk' to glorify war. Hanson most certainly fits this profile. It would be nice to put a gun in his hand and send him into war to find out what it's really like.
Hanson's historical sources are terrible. An introductory historical methods class would show just about anyone that Hanson's evidence is questionable at best and deadly at worst. Take, for example, when he writes of how Ottoman soldiers threw oranges at western soldiers who were shooting their rifles at them? Where did he read about this? It could not have been a very reliable primary source. Hanson will write anything to humiliate any armies that had the audacity to fight western forces. Like when he claims that 'Spanish Rationalism' enabled the Conquistadors to easily conquer the Aztecs. He doesn't even mention the impact of diseases or the political instability of Meso-America prior to Spanish invasion.
Who takes all of Herodotus's writings as literal, empirical truths? Hanson, that is who. Amazing. It is up for debate whether Herodotus is 'The Father of History' and/or 'The Father of Lies'. But, the willingness of one historian to uncritically cite a source from over two thousand years ago suggests an unambiguously political agenda. Cicero, commenting on Herodotus's writings a relatively short three-hundred some odd years later even recognized the questionable veracity of these fables. Just remember the ridiculous part of the Frank Miller movie, "300" when an ancient Spartan claims that, "Freedom isn't free" and you will get an idea of what kind of historical accounts Hanson gives in this book. He is imposing far too much of the present on the past. The anachronisms in "Carnage and Culture" are almost as evident as they are in the movie "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure".
The example of the Ottomans throwing oranges at western forces that are armed with rifles is a part of his introductory narratives that sound more like Chuck Norris movies than actual historical events. Seriously, remember when John Rambo gunned down about a thousand Vietnamese soldiers without reloading. This is exactely what Hanson's introductions sound like. These certainly are more fiction than fact. That's the liberal media right? It is truly incredible that Hanson fashions himself as an academic rebel by defying the establishment of 'liberal academia'. Why do so called 'conservatives' in the United States (conservatism is in a terrible state in the U.S.) worship arrogance as if it makes someone 'manly'? Seriously, gender mixed with politics is sickening. I would love to see Hanson forced to live in a war zone. Instead, he just calls it like he sees it- from 3,000 miles away after a few thousand or hundred years. All while in the comfort of his upper-class residence in sunny California. Most likely complete with immigrant laborers doing his house work. If only Marx was right about the proletariat.
Let's not forget what Hanson has to say about the wonders of capitalism. For the record, I personally do not think that capitalism is necessarily 'evil'. However, the concept itself can justify some of the worst abuses imposed on the human race. People like Hanson love to abuse the concept. Hanson claims that capitalism was around in the 5th century B.C. during the time of the Greco-Persian wars. I know that other historians do this but what is the point? It has to be political. Free market ideologists, who see the market through theological lenses, turn capitalism into the most unruly concept in order to further their agendas. The most salient example of this is when he claims that capitalism is the best economic system because it recognizes how human nature is fundamentally self-centered. Sorry Hanson, but I like to leave my front door asking myself how I can make the lives of others better. Life isn't all about just me. Although, ultimately, my interests do come first. He further claims that the pursuit of individual wealth benenfits entire nations/cultures as a whole. Check out the chapter on the battle of Lepanto for an analysis of how supply-side economics, inherent in European economic systems, caused the downfall of the Ottoman empire. These anachronisms would be funny if it were not for the prejudice they breed. Jingoism and intolerance are necessary ingredients in Hanson's stew of cultural chauvinism.
Hanson's book is the worst kind of cultural chauvinism. Heaven forbid if someone should be unlucky enough to be born in non-western countries where they have no freedom, fight like cowards, and just about always lose. At one time, it was acceptable to denigrate non-western cultures based on the physical characteristics of the people themselves. This has fallen out of favor. Hanson's book, however, illustrates how imperialist ideologies are still acceptable when coded into the language of culture. Raymond Williams would most likely see this as 'remnant ideology'. Hanson has very little, if any, respect for 'cultures' other than those in western "civilizations". So much for learning from other peoples. Just read the book and find out. Chances are, if you are not an angry, western European male, you have either bought into this culture, or will be infuriated by Hanson's ideologies.
It is interesting that Hanson's book appeared at a time when western hegemony of the globe is in decline. The power of China, India and Pakistan are growing by the day. Perhaps Hanson is nostalgic for a time when Britain ruled over these peoples. Nonetheless, it is important to recognize, as previously mentioned, that Hanson's ridiculous thesis could very well be used to justify the invasion of western powers into just about any other nations. In this sense, Hanson could be categorized as what Antonio Gramsci refered to as a 'traditional intellectual'. He just kowtows to imperialist interests. Read 'The Rebel' by Albert Camus for more on how intellectual reasoning can justify any kind of murder. Hanson gives a recipe for death in "Carnage and Culture".
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| Editorial Reviews: |
Through vivid depictions of historic battles, Victor Davis Hanson reveals the connection between the West’s superiority on the battlefield and its rise to world dominance.
Why have Western values triumphed? Why are Western ideas and practices spreading unopposed throughout the globe? In this sweeping and ambitious work of military and cultural history, Victor Davis Hanson convincingly argues that it all comes down to the Western knack for killing.
Hanson is a superb writer with a particular gift for dropping the reader into the midst of clashing armies. With his trademark zest for bringing the gritty realities of battle to life, he vividly re-creates nine important confrontations between Western and non-Western armies, from the stunning Greek victory at Salamis in 480 B.C. to Cortés’s conquest of Mexico City in 1521 to the grueling urban warfare of Vietnam’s Tet Offensive. But Hanson goes beyond the conventions of the “guns and trumpets” genre to reveal the cultural underpinnings that determined the course and consequences of each engagement and in the process advances a bold and provocative thesis about the reasons for Western global dominance. Replying to those who stress environmental and other nonhuman factors in the rise of Western hegemony, Hanson shows that the rise of the West was not a fluke of geography or “germs” but a logical result of Western cultural dynamism as manifested in its ways of making war.
Each battle illustrates a crucial element in the distinctive and powerful matrix of Western identity. Hanson delineates the characteristics of successful armies–including individual initiative, superior organization and discipline, access to matchless weapons, and tactical adaptation and flexibility. Then he shows how these characteristics develop and flourish as a result of such traditional Western institutions and ideals as consensual government, free inquiry and innovative enterprise, rationalism, and the value placed on freedom and individualism. These are the cultural values that have enabled Western armies, often vastly outnumbered and far from home, to slaughter their opponents and impose their social, economic, and political ideals on other civilizations.
Through his detailed reconstructions of these battles, some of which were actually lost by Western armies, Hanson tells the story of the rise of Western global dominance. He thereby joins the great debate about the character and future of the West, sparked by recent controversial works by authors such as Samuel Huntington, Paul Johnson, and Francis Fukuyama.
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