Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson (født 1953 i Fowler i Californien) er militærhistoriker, politisk klummeskriver og professor emeritus i klassisk historie. Bedst kendt er han som ekspert i klassisk krigsførelse og kommentator om moderne krigsførelse. Han er landmand og dyrker druer til rosinfremstilling.

Carnage and Culture 
Hans kendteste bog er Carnage and Culture fra 2001, hvori han argumenterer for, at vestens militære og kulturelle dominans helt fra oldtidens Grækenland ikke bunder i ren tilfældighed, men kommer af fundamentale aspekter af vestlig kultur. Han modsiger dermed forklaringer baseret på race og/eller natur & geografi, som forslået af Jared Diamond i hans bog Guns, Germs and Steel.

Ifølge Hanson udgør vestlige værdier som politisk frihed, kapitalisme, individualisme, demokrati, videnskabelighed, rationalisme og fri debat en helt afgørende blanding, når de anvendes om krig. Ikke-vestlige samfund kan vinde et slag nu og da, også når de kommer op imod samfund med basis i disse værdier, men “Den vestlige krigsførelse” vil altid sejre i længden. Hanson understreger, at vestlig krigsførelse ikke nødvendigvis er mere eller mindre moralsk end krigsførelse af andre civilisationer; blot at “Den vestlige krigsførelse” er uden sidestykke i sin evne til ødelæggelse og total sejr.

I Carnage and Culture studerer Hanson ni historiske slag for at illustrere forskellige aspekter af vestlig kultur, som han mener bidrager til vestens dominans. Slagene eller kampagnerne, der gennemgås, er således (med temaerne i parentes):
 Slaget ved Salamis (480 f.Kr.; frie borgere)
 Slaget ved Gaugamela (331 f.Kr. Det afgørende udslettelsesslag)
 Slaget ved Cannae (216 f.Kr. civil militarisme)
 Slaget ved Poitiers (732 infanteri)
 Slaget ved Tenochtitlán (1521 teknologi og rationalitet)
 Slaget ved Lepanto (1571 kapitalisme)
 Slaget ved Rorke's Drift (1879 disiplin)
 Slaget om Midway (1942 individualisme)
 Tet-offensiven (1968 civil uenighed)

Selv om Carnage and Culture udkom før Terrorangrebet den 11. september 2001, er konklusionen, at “Den vestlige krigsførelse” ultimativt vil sejre, hvilket Hanson gjorde klart i et forord i en genudgivelse umiddelbart efter angrebene.
Hanson forsvarer præsident Donald Trumps holdninger.

Bibliografi 
 Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece. University of California Press, 1983. 
 The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece. Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. 
 Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience, editor, Routledge, 1991. 
 The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization, Free Press, 1995. 
 Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea, Free Press, 1996. 
 Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom, with John Heath, Free Press, 1998. 
 The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny, Free Press, 1999. 
 The Wars of the Ancient Greeks: And the Invention of Western Military Culture, Cassell, 1999. 
 The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer, Free Press, 2000. 
 Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age, with John Heath and Bruce S. Thornton, ISI Books, 2001. 
 Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, Doubleday, 2001. 
 Published in the UK as Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam, Faber, 2001. 
 An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism, Anchor Books, 2002. 
 A collection of essays, mostly from National Review, covering events occurring between September 11, 2001 and January 2002
 Mexifornia: A State of Becoming, Encounter Books, 2003. 
 Ripples of Battle: How Wars Fought Long Ago Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think, Doubleday, 2003. 
 Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq, Random House, 2004. 
 A collection of essays, mostly from National Review, covering events occurring between January 2002 and July 2003
 A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War, Random House, 2005.

Eksterne henvisninger

Officielle websider 
 Official Website of Victor Davis Hanson
 Archive of Hanson's articles at National Review Online 
 Hanson's blog  at Pajamas Media

Interviews 
 C-SPAN Book TV In Depth (RealVideo) (3-hour interview)
 An Interview with The American Enterprise  magazine of the American Enterprise Institute January/February 2004
 VDH quotes from 2003 articles
 An interview with Right Wing News
 Spread of Democracy Will Make World Safer  a moderated webchat with Victor Davis Hanson hosted by the Department of State, International Information Program.
 A War Like No Other – An Interview with FrontPage Magazine November 8, 2005

Uddannelsesinstitutioner 
 Victor Hanson Faculty Biography 
 Bio from Fresno State News 
 Hoover Institution Bio (archive.org)
 Claremont Institute Bio 
 The Sage of Fresno  by Jonathan Kay, a media fellow at the Hoover Institution

Online aktikler af VDH 
 Ferocious Warmakers: How Democracies Win Wars  by Victor Davis Hanson published by the Claremont Review of Books Winter 2002.
 The Paranoid Style. Iraq: Where socialists and anarchists join in with racialists and paleocons  an essay by Victor Davis Hanson published in National Review, in which VDH answers critics of his support for the removal of Saddam Hussein (including Gary Brecher—see below). August 26, 2005

Kritikere 
 Torturing History A review of Carnage And Culture which claims Hanson rewrites history; see also Hanson's reply
 When Superpowers Lose  A review of Carnage and Culture from a socialist perspective
 Review and commentary on Mexifornia  by a pro-immigration group
 The Case of Victor Davis Hanson: Farmer, Scholar, Warmonger  — a neo-Confederate, libertarian perspective
 Victor Hanson, portrait of an American Traitor by Gary Brecher

Noter 

Historikere fra USA
Militærhistorikere
Personer fra Californien