Why the West Won...and Still Does: Carnage and Culture

By James Baehr | Monday, May 13, 2002

Victor Davis Hanson, in his book Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, proposes that the Western way of life, its systems of democratic government and ideals, has led to its tremendous ability to conquer non-Westerners. Whether as defenders or as conquistadors, Hanson claims, the Western focus on freedom, capitalism, discipline, and individualism have made the difference in countless engagements and led to Western global dominance. Though Hanson's thesis may seem controversial, its conclusion is weakened by its failure to address the underlying moral issues surrounding Western dominance.

That said, Hanson's work has many strong points. In unearthing and speaking of battles long forgotten, he brings to the fore moments of human courage and audacity that are not well known in this age where the classics have been mostly forgotten.

Hanson's section on Salamis is stirring—a battle waged between Greeks and Persians upon which the existence of the Western world hung in the balance. Hanson captures the brutality of that naval engagement, recalling an Athenian play that describes the scene of 40,000 drowning Persians: 'And so shrieks together with sobbing echoed over the open sea until the face of the black night at last covered the scene.' Xerxes, the imperial ruler of Persia watched safely from a mountaintop as his soldier-slaves drowned below. The distinction between the Greek commanders, who died alongside the freeman soldiers who fought with them, and Xerxes could not be clearer.

The motive force of freedom runs powerfully throughout this narrative. Xerxes' forces had driven the Greeks into an impossible situation—if naval victory could not be won at this tiny inlet, the Persian hordes would have destroyed the West in its very infancy. At their moment of trial, however, the Greeks rallied together and defeated their foes. Aeschylus tells us the Greeks exhorted each other to 'Free your native soil. Free your children, your wives, the images of your fathers' gods, and the tombs of your ancestors!' And, the Greeks swore to each other before the battle to value freedom over their own lives.

In each of his chapters, Hanson begins with vivid recreations of battlefield actions and then delves into the issues and ideas that underlie the physical struggles. In establishing Western preeminence, he discusses both Western military defeats and victories. His focus on Western defeat serves as exceptions, but still further focus on the strengths of the West. For example, his discussion of the battle of Cannae, a massive Roman defeat by the Carthaginian general Hannibal, is intended not to show Western weakness, but Western resilience: 'What is remarkable about Cannae is not that thousands of Romans were so easily massacred in battle, but that they were massacred to such little strategic effect. Within a year after the battle the Romans could field legions as good as those who fell in August.' Hanson also points to the Tet Offensive, in the Vietnam War, as an example of a Western defeat on the way to an ultimate Western victory. Hanson concludes that, despite the hysterical dissent and self-critique of the American media throughout the conflict and the ultimate American retreat from Vietnamese soil, the defeat was not absolute. 'In the next few decades it shall come to pass that Vietnam will resemble the West far more than the West Vietnam,' he writes.

Though Hanson's message is an interesting read, the book at times becomes bogged down with repetition. He sprinkles certain terms and words liberally throughout the book. He must repeat the term 'shock troops' or some variation thereof several hundred times over the course of his work. Every several paragraphs, Hanson seems to insert a sentence cross-referencing his work with itself, connecting a jumble of Western battles together under various Western ideas, too often for necessity. One wishes Hanson had made better use of his thesaurus or at least cut a hundred pages out of his work.

However, the feeling of lack of depth in Hanson's work is not in the writing, but in its amoral standpoint. It is one thing to say that the West has won the world and has presently arrived at a state of hegemony—this much is obvious on a globe where Coca-Cola is recognized by nearly all of the world's inhabitants. What is not so clear is whether the West is right or wrong. The case could well have been made, more controversially perhaps, that not only did the West win because of better ideas but the West won also because of more moral ideas—of freedom and human dignity, in speech, in thought and in commerce.

Why the West Won...and Still Does: Carnage and Culture

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