Pop Romanizing

Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, by Cullen Murphy (Houghton Mifflin, 272 pp., $24)

IN the last decade, and especially after 9/11, it has become popular once again to compare the United States to ancient Rome. The pop analogies almost always appear in the pessimistic context of an American colossus betraying its origins and ideals-and, like Rome, facing the deserved end of its empire.

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.

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Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America, by Cullen Murphy (Houghton Mifflin, 272 pp., $24)

IN the last decade, and especially after 9/11, it has become popular once again to compare the United States to ancient Rome. The pop analogies almost always appear in the pessimistic context of an American colossus betraying its origins and ideals-and, like Rome, facing the deserved end of its empire.

About the Author

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; the author of The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won; and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.