The Father of Us All

War and History, Ancient and Modern

By Victor Davis Hanson

A master historian explores how war has shaped our societies—and how societies shape warfare—from Ancient Greece to the present day, in a sweeping survey that offers profound lessons for facing today's conflicts.

Victor Davis Hanson has long been acclaimed as one of our leading scholars of ancient history. In recent years he has also become a trenchant voice on current affairs, bringing a historian's deep knowledge of past conflicts to bear on the crises of the present, from 9/11 to Iran. "War," he writes, "is an entirely human enterprise." Ideologies change, technologies develop, new strategies are invented—but human nature is constant across time and space. The dynamics of warfare in the present age still remain comprehensible to us through careful study of the past. Though many have called the War on Terror unprecedented, its contours would have been quite familiar to Themistocles of Athens or William Tecumseh Sherman. And as we face the menace of a bin Laden or a Kim Jong-Il, we can prepare ourselves with knowledge of how such challenges have been met before.

The Father of Us All brings together much of Hanson's finest writing on war and society, both ancient and modern. The author has gathered a range of essays, and combined and revised them into a richly textured new work that explores such topics as how technology shapes warfare, what constitutes the "American way of war," and why even those who abhor war need to study military history. "War is the father and king of us all," Heraclitus wrote in ancient Greece. And as Victor Davis Hanson shows, it is no less so today.

Advance Praise for The Father of Us All:

"Few writers cover both current events and history--and none with the brilliance and erudition of Victor Davis Hanson. In The Father of Us All, he uses his deep knowledge of military history to shed light on present-day controversies. Required reading for anyone interested in war, past or present."—Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Savage Wars of Peace and War Made New

"Victor Hanson brings to his writing a mixture of learning and reflection that is rare in any age, especially the ignorant one in which we live."—Dr. Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College

Reviews for The Father of Us All

Interesting talk at the Capitola Book Cafe in Capitola, California with Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Father Of Us All on C-Span's Book TV.

“…Hanson makes a number of important points in a style eminently readable, spirited, and often eloquent.”—Proceedings (published by the US Naval Institute)

Lee Hanson will be interviewed on Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg on WGN Radio in Chicago on June 3rd.

Victor was interviewed by Lewis Lapham on Bloomberg Radio a few days ago. Here's the podcast.

Listen to Victor David Hanson, author of Father Of Us All on Talk of the Nation .

"Folksinger Pete Seeger ain’t gonna study war no more, but classicist Hanson warns againstpolitical, and intellectual leadership: out of fashion in the academy, military history was the specialty of just 1.9 percent of American history professors as of 2007. As he suggests reasons for this state of neglect, Hanson expatiates within specific essays, such as his preface to Donald Kagan’s The Peloponnesian War (2003), on the effects of historical forgetfulness. Hanson sees examples abounding in American leaders’ negative reactions to the Iraq War, responses that the author witheringly critiques for poor historical aptitude and poor understanding about the military and military operations. At bottom, Hanson argues that recoiling from learning about warfare ignores what he insists is its tragic nature: that war, inherent in human nature, can only be struggled against and not be wished away. Not a happy message to peace-studies idealists but one a balanced current-events collection should include."—Booklist