The Western Edge

Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, by Victor Davis Hanson (Doubleday, 492 pp., $29.95)

THE serious academic historian ig- nores military history, treating it as a form of misplaced machismo, fit only for “buffs” of various wars, collectors of toy soldiers, and denizens of retrograde enclaves like West Point and the Naval Academy. As a result, military history is the most popular and creative form of historical writing today. Its pariah status in the university has allowed it to flourish unpolluted by postmodernism and political correctness. Civil War history is the one remaining field in American history where authors are routinely expected to do painstaking work in the original sources and write clear and even moving prose. Authors like Stephen Ambrose and John Keegan have shown that the story of men at war can teach lessons that go far beyond the recitation of battlefield tactics and individual deeds of heroism: It can expose important characteristics of a society in a given time and place, and sharply reveal human nature at its most exalted and its most base. This is the sort of moral framework the events of this September have thrust upon us, just as similar events did in 1861 and 1941.

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.

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Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, by Victor Davis Hanson (Doubleday, 492 pp., $29.95)

THE serious academic historian ig- nores military history, treating it as a form of misplaced machismo, fit only for “buffs” of various wars, collectors of toy soldiers, and denizens of retrograde enclaves like West Point and the Naval Academy. As a result, military history is the most popular and creative form of historical writing today. Its pariah status in the university has allowed it to flourish unpolluted by postmodernism and political correctness. Civil War history is the one remaining field in American history where authors are routinely expected to do painstaking work in the original sources and write clear and even moving prose. Authors like Stephen Ambrose and John Keegan have shown that the story of men at war can teach lessons that go far beyond the recitation of battlefield tactics and individual deeds of heroism: It can expose important characteristics of a society in a given time and place, and sharply reveal human nature at its most exalted and its most base. This is the sort of moral framework the events of this September have thrust upon us, just as similar events did in 1861 and 1941.

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.