The Active Life
Victor Davis Hanson wrote a book called The Western Way Of War that turned most of everything we thought we knew about Greek warfare on its head. For instance, we’d always assumed that generals gave long, inspiring speeches to their troops before battle, just like they did in ancient literature. Hanson went ahead and actually tried on a hoplite helmet and it turns out that speeches would have been pretty worthless since none of them had any earholes.
And for a really long time, historians had just taken the phrase “then the troops laid waste to the land” completely for granted. Hanson was clearing trees and vines from his property in Central California when it became obvious that the notion must have been symbolic, not literal. Uprooting olive trees is difficult with tractors in the year 2009; it would have been impossible at any scale for a Greek solider.
Hanson’s most important contributions to the history of warfare didn’t come from study but from experimentation and inspiration from an active life. Now we have an accurate, practical understanding of a style of war that was steeped in unspoken communication between soldiers and a sensitive concept of sovereignty between nations. All because Hanson trained himself to question obvious assumptions and to have the curiosity to catch small clues that once examined, open a rabbit hole of new information.
In other words, the most important skills he has as an academic have nothing to do with the classroom. Nor are they best put to use there either. So the next time you hear a professor pontificating in a scholarly journal or a dataphile obsessing about a pedantic detail, remember how often they will be completely disrupted by some tinkerer unafraid to put basic assumptions to the most important test: everyday life.
I had a history teacher who claimed the reason Charlemagne never learned to write was exhaustion of the forearm from bearing a sword, making articulation of the hands and fingers difficult, something he discovered trying to sign a contractor’s bill after a day of painting. I knew what he was talking about, but it seemed a silly explanation for why someone who grew up illiterate would have trouble learning later in life.
Victor Hanson’s explanations remind me of this. We know from other periods of warfare that troops rarely marched in full armor, and would have only suited up right before battle lines were formed. “Laying waste to the land” usually meant burning crops and salting the earth, not just one specific act that turns out to be impossible. He sounds like another buffoon trying to make a name for himself by going against grain.
Ironically enough this reminded me of one of my favorite classroom experiences. Rather than simply discuss William Jennings Bryant my professor chose instead to actually deliver the “Cross of Gold” speech. That one experience probably gave me more context than years of memorizing “basic assumption” about history.
@ Ben
Here’s what I love to do: Make sweeping, dismissive comments about books that I haven’t read because I had a crappy history teacher in high school.
Everything you mentioned is addressed and dealt with at length in the book, which is why it has been considered a SEMINAL piece of the study of warfare for the the last three decades.
Snark is the worst. You can keep these comments to yourself from now on because not only are you factually wrong in this case, but wrong about the history of science – where “buffoons” are the ones that make all the important discoveries that we then take for granted.
Ryan-
Very true, I instantly regretted phrasing it the way I did as soon as I posted. Let’s just say I’ll withhold judgment until I read it, reservations notwithstanding.
I think the most important thing is the tinkerer idea, and how Historical ideas, just like Philosophical ones should be put to the test.
Tinkering really does lead to magnificient things, sometimes we have to ‘think outside the box’ and the best way to do that is a bottom up approach.
VDH further explores the “Western Way” of warfare in “Carnage and Culture.” Defintitely worth reading.
Despite the value of his earlier work, VDH really fell off the wagon later in life. He fell into that obnoxious school of thought which treats the past like a dress-up box, where you can just root around in history and pull out rather contorted analogies to modern events.
His politics and ideology pretty clearly color his later work. “The Soul of Battle” in particular is rather embarrassing.