Anyone read any Victor Davis Hanson?

[King_of_Spain]

Isn't he the guy who claims that white yeoman farmers make superior soldiers which is why the Spartans, the British Empire, and the US of A were inherently superior to any other military?

EDIT: Yes he is.

He really seems to appeal to people with only a very basic understanding of history, which is probably why Carlin thinks so highly of him.

I think that's unfair - Carlin uses him to describe the physical reality of hoplite fighting, to outline the organization of the ranks, their equipment, the length of battles and so on, and he prefaces any mention of him with the acknowledgement that his viewpoint is hugely controversial. Carlin never makes any point about the West being naturally stronger (morally or in any other way) than the Persian Empire when he talks about Plataea, Marathon or Thermopylae; in fact the opposite, he goes to great lengths to emphasize how something that seems to important to Eurocentric historians - the defeat of the Persian Empire by “plucky” underdog Greeks who save Western civ - is actually a minor inconvenience at the edge of the Persian Empire that is basically unnoticed by nearly everyone within it.

And it's harsh so say he has a basic understanding, I think. First of all, his degree was in history before he became a journalist, which in itself gives him a better understanding than average, and he does cite and quotes pretty extensively through his podcasts. Secondly, he never claimed these podcasts were anything other than pop history. The man’s a storyteller and doesn’t pretend otherwise.

 

[Geriander]

Isn't he the guy who claims that white yeoman farmers make superior soldiers which is why the Spartans, the British Empire, and the US of A were inherently superior to any other military?

Source on the ”white” part? Hanson seems to have tried to create a non-racial explanation for the military success of the West.

 

[icedt729]

Source on the ”white” part? Hanson seems to have tried to create a non-racial explanation for the military success of the West.

I would argue it's kindof implicit in how his arguments are structured. If a European stabs you with a spear, he's exercising "decisive shock battle," but if an Asian or an African does it it doesn't count.

 

[Geriander]

I would argue it's kindof implicit in how his arguments are structured. If a European stabs you with a spear, he's exercising "decisive shock battle," but if an Asian or an African does it it doesn't count.

Hanson seems to be picking and choosing examples to support his idea that middle class farmers caused the military success of the west. He excludes contrary examples, be they western mercenaries or non-western yeoman farmers, because they undermine his idea. I agree that this makes him a poor historian, at least outside his area of expertise, but it is not proof of racism.

A racist doesn’t need to come up with elaborate explanations for ”why the west won”. They can simply claim genetic superiority. Middle class farmers wanting short and decisive wars so as to avoid damaged harvests isn’t a particularly race-based theory.

 

[icedt729]

Right, it's not really right to say that Hanson is a racist, but I do think he's a chauvinist in the sense that he uses cherrypicked evidence and inconsistent measurements to argue that Westerners have consistently been culturally superior to others instead of biologically superior. I think Niall Ferguson has better historical chops than Hanson but still suffers from this chauvinism.

 

[Black Turtle]

I would argue it's kindof implicit in how his arguments are structured. If a European stabs you with a spear, he's exercising "decisive shock battle," but if an Asian or an African does it it doesn't count.

LMFAO. This pretty much sums up Hanson's work in a nutshell.

 

[Sabotage13]

The man’s a storyteller and doesn’t pretend otherwise.

Yes, that was my point.

 

[Sabotage13]

Hanson seems to be picking and choosing examples to support his idea that middle class farmers caused the military success of the west. He excludes contrary examples, be they western mercenaries or non-western yeoman farmers, because they undermine his idea. I agree that this makes him a poor historian, at least outside his area of expertise, but it is not proof of racism.

A racist doesn’t need to come up with elaborate explanations for ”why the west won”. They can simply claim genetic superiority. Middle class farmers wanting short and decisive wars so as to avoid damaged harvests isn’t a particularly race-based theory.

Actually he even goes further and classifies societies like Kwa-Zulu or Carthage "collectivist" which makes absolutely no sense out of context, but even less so in the context of putting them next to opponents like the British Empire or the Roman Republic. Because what made the Roman Republic so remarkable was its adherence to individual freedom! And the British Empire was built on civic-minded middle class farmers with a vested interest in the success of their polity! Whereas the largest trade city in the Western Mediterranean is basically the Soviet Union in Hanson's story.

But he really takes the cake when he claims that the Vietnamese were collectivists and therefore militarily inferior to the US Army. Because it was really America who won the Vietnam War.

Notice a pattern already?


You know which example he doesn't pick, even though it would be the one where it's actually appropriate to compare the success of an army of free people vs. the armies of slavers? I'll let you make a guess.

 

[Sabotage13]

Another fun fact: Not a single of the wars Hanson cites has been won by "decisive shock battles".
The Roman Empire excelled at logistics and political resilience in the face of near-certain defeat and won the Punic Wars despite a series of costly early defeats.
The British Empire could sit out early defeats at the hand of indigenous troops until they could bring their global empire to bear.
And America's most decisive advantage in any of their successful wars since 1861 was in leveraging its industrial superiority in the face of initial defeats on the battlefield.


Hanson is a political hack who moonlights as a historian because dressing up your political prejudices in historical clothing sells more books.

There are only two reasons why anybody would think he's worth anything at all as a historian (as opposed to, say, a writer of alternate history fiction): Cluenessness and politics.

 

[Herbert West]

Actually he even goes further and classifies societies like Kwa-Zulu or Carthage "collectivist" which makes absolutely no sense out of context, but even less so in the context of putting them next to opponents like the British Empire or the Roman Republic. Because what made the Roman Republic so remarkable was its adherence to individual freedom! And the British Empire was built on civic-minded middle class farmers with a vested interest in the success of their polity!

From what I understand, based on this thread, his argument is about the freedom and individualism of those doing the fighting. As such, it is irrelevant wether or not the larger polity into which these supposed free smallholders were embedded was slave-owning or not. Based on this, it seems in bad faith to dredge up slavery (a common practice worldwide, more or less independent of the other factors of society).

I also don't see how the 40 shilling smallholders (we are supposedly talking about the equivalent of a class that could afford hoplite armour) are an argument against, not for, his position.

By all means, grind your axe, but I fail to see how these points you raisde are relevant.

 

[BaronNoir]

Isn't he the guy who claims that white yeoman farmers make superior soldiers which is why the Spartans, the British Empire, and the US of A were inherently superior to any other military?

EDIT: Yes he is.

He really seems to appeal to people with only a very basic understanding of history, which is probably why Carlin thinks so highly of him.

It's calling the Spartans yeoman that perplex me.

 

[BaronNoir]

When he sticks to the Greek times (duh), his explanations for actions in the Classical Greece are perfectly logical and rational. There was obviously a large group of citizens in Greek poleis that was not in the aristocracy while having political powers. (Is ''middle classes'' appropriate for describing them is another matter). It also quite obvious that if poleis had conducted massive warfare on the scale of Athens or Sparta, Greece would have been depopulated quite fast (faster). As there are examples of fair sized political entities conducting wars boiling down to arranged fights between similar sized units to avoid devastation (Battle of Thyrea between Sparta and Argos), it's not a stretch to imagine that two average greek cities (a few hundred citizens) fighting over pasture rights might have tried to keep things reasonable.

 

[Sabotage13]

The idea that the armies of the Greek poleis didn't resort to raiding, harassment tactics, or targeting the civilian population is laughable.

It is even more laughable to claim they refused to do so based on the political influence or civic virtue of middle class farmers.

 

[BaronNoir]

The idea that the armies of the Greek poleis didn't resort to raiding, harassment tactics, or targeting the civilian population is laughable.

It is even more laughable to claim they refused to do so based on the political influence or civic virtue of middle class farmers.

Perfectly true for Sparta and Athens. However, those were two cities out of few hundreds and they conducting proto-state diplomacies wildly out of the reach of a tiny city

 

[Eusebio]

The shock troops of the British Empire were the defeated and dispossessed Highlanders, hardly yeoman freeholders...

 

[BaronNoir]

The shock troops of the British Empire were the defeated and dispossessed Highlanders, hardly yeoman freeholders...

More to the point that should be obvious for an American, the norm during early conscription (in the USA or Europe) was for the ''farmers'' to pay for saving their sons from service (substitutes and the like)

 

[Sabotage13]

From what I understand, based on this thread, his argument is about the freedom and individualism of those doing the fighting. As such, it is irrelevant wether or not the larger polity into which these supposed free smallholders were embedded was slave-owning or not. Based on this, it seems in bad faith to dredge up slavery (a common practice worldwide, more or less independent of the other factors of society).

Are you talking about the professional soldiers of the British Empire, Rome's Italian allies and auxiliaries, or the Spartan helots?

Can you actually point to a single one of Hanson's examples where the known facts actually support his thesis?