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This is my kind of historian: Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson is a giant in the field of ancient Greece and Rome. A couple of his works have become standard texts in ancient military history classes. He writes great, objective history. He is also a conservative who is not afraid to speak his mind. I love the fact that the books of his I have read are unbiased and objective and he does not let his politics get in the way of making objective judgments or interpretations of history. He is an historian who practices the principles of the signature at the bottom of my posts.
Phid,Can you move this topic to the Roman Senate Chambers? I am certain that I placed it in the wrong group.I have some more pieces to add to this and it will probably become a pretty big collection.Exhibit # 1: Life at New Animal Farm Won't Be All That BadI have no idea how Hanson keeps his position at Stanford unless he has tenure. He must drive the rest of liberal academia crazy with his op-ed pieces.
Is Stanford that bad? It doesn't appear to be the Leftist-producing factory like Brown and it certainly ain't Berkeley.
I dont know how far to the left Stanford is but Hanson bucks a trend in academia. Who would have thought the University of Colorado would have someone like Ward Churchill on faculty? Of course UC fired him, but only after a media storm following his remarks about the victims of 9/11 and further reporting exposed his complete lack of academic qualifications.
I think that you'll find most large institutions are by default liberal, though most will have at least a handful of conservative scholars as well. I know someone who just got back from being interviewed at a university in the South and was surprised when she found (what I call) a homosexual cabal there in the department. It is my hunch that they were upfront about it so that they could put her to the “test” and see how she reacted.Anyway, I was just talking about this with a fellow student tonight after class....I'm interested in finding good conservative professors in my field, and maybe try to contact them. It's good to keep track of who the good people are in any one field....someone should start an online database of such people.
This is a much more eloquent rant about the dangers of Deconstructionism and Postmodernism in modern education than I could ever write. It helps that Hanson has personal experience of teaching on modern American Campuses. The more I read from him the more I like him. I had only read his scholarly stuff until a few weeks ago but he is incisive in his analysis and devastating in his critiques of the American, indeed Western Left. The New Learning That Failed He is great. His scholarly work is outstanding, his political commentaries are just icing on the cake.
That's a good article!I've only read Hanson's political articles, never any of his books on history. The only thing I would be cautious of is if he goes maybe a little too much to the right ideologically. But I ONLY say that after reading his political commentary. Maybe his scholarly work is good.I love how he mentions the demise of Classical history in this article. I don't know if I'm so interested in it because it is so rare, misuderstood, or misrepresented (especially the "Dark" Ages) or because I just find it incredibly interesting. As of now, I find the Peloponnesian War far more interesting than WWII.I love this one!
Third, as remedy, we argued that classicists at every level must work harder and more creatively to expand the study of the ancient world within the university, challenging anti-Western biases on campus
Also, I can see where the author of Black Athena gets this
Martin Bernal?s Black Athena, for example, made a preposterous case that the Greek legacy was largely a result of borrowing and theft from Egyptians, who themselves were black Africans, and by implication the real creators of Western civilization
but he's wrong on many levels. What I think the Left misses is that the Greeks "borrowed" (I hate that word though) some Near East and Egyptian (NOT African) culture, but they improved upon it and took it to amazing levels that have never been seen before. The Left does not teach it this way. The Left is even getting to the point where they say the Greeks borrowed it because it was better. That's a load of crap! The Left also teaches the arrogance of Greek and Roman culture. Yes, perhaps they were at times, but why should they not be proud of their advances in writing, philosophy, art, warfare, and education?I would have to ask the Left, so where's the Parthenons and Olympic Temples of Zeus or the Circus Maximuses in the Near East or Africa? The closest they have is Persepolis. But if I recall correctly, the Greeks beat the snot out of Persia both diplomatically and militarily to the point of embarassing them. And there should be no need to explain what Alexander did to the Persian capital.
You may have just found your historical area of interest. ;D I just happened upon mine. I always liked history, especially military history but once I started reading about the German Wars of Unification in the 1860's-1871 I found the subject fascinating. I have since broadened my interest a little to cover Prussian history from frederick the Great to 1918. WWII for the most part bores me mainly because of the ideological tilt of most WWII scholarship. That is starting to infect Great War scholarship as well. Nothing is sacred to the post-modern crowd. Hanson's analysis of the deconstructive trend and the use of history to make points is spot on.
