An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism by Victor Davis Hanson

From Barnes & Noble

Fires were still raging in the rubble of the World Trade Center when military historian Victor Davis Hanson put his fingers to the keyboard on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. In a rapidly written essay, reproduced that very day in National Review Online, Hanson insisted that America, like it or not, was now at war. In these essays, which fellow conservative Richard Pipes called "bold and politically incorrect," Hanson rails against terrorism and those he identifies as its fellow travelers.

From the Publisher

On September 11, 2001, hours after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the eminent military historian Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article in which he asserted that the United States, like it or not, was now at war and had the moral right to respond with force. An Autumn of War, which opens with that first essay, will stimulate readers across the political spectrum to think more deeply about the attacks, the war, and their lessons for all of us.

Publishers Weekly

"Why do they hate us?" is the wrong question to ask after September 11, writes Hanson; war and tragedy are to be expected, as the ancients knew. Hanson's classicism informs this collection of essays that appeared mostly on National Review Online, presented here chronologically, from September (when, he argues, "we had no choice but to counterattack long and hard") through December 2001, when he considers the implications of that counterattack. Liberals beware: Hanson has no patience for these who believe the condition of the world can be ameliorated. (On sale Aug. 13) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Essays originally published in National Review Online from just after 9/11 through January 2002, arguing that the war on terrorism is justly rooted in both American and classical ideals. The classical connection will not surprise those familiar with the author's previous work (Carnage and Culture, 2001, etc.), many of which highlight the ancients' mastery of the arts of war and battle as the paramount hallmarks of classical culture. Since conservative thinkers must by definition be anchored somewhere in the past, even readers of a liberal bent may conclude that Hanson (Classics/California State Univ., Fresno) could have made a worse choice than ancient Greece, though they may well deplore the amount of time he spends flaying his fellow academics as "elitists." The vast majority of Americans supported the US administration's response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, so these pieces primarily offer the comfort that what little dissent was registered stemmed, in the author's view, from feckless or ultraliberal know-nothings. The author is at his best in hammering America's own experiences (with emphasis on the exploits of prosecutorial warriors like Grant, Sherman, and Patton) into a paradigm for confronting state-supported terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism. This crusade is occasionally hampered by the wide factual latitude Hanson exercises even as he derides the "distortions" of the media. For example, he continually alludes to the World Trade Center fatalities as if no foreign nationals were included, using the estimate of about 3,000 casualties to support the need to avenge "more American dead than in every battle up to Shiloh." In his Arab world of "noelected leaders," Arafat is not present. The Islamic nations, the author believes, cannot cope with modernity and are incapable of providing participatory government because of their roots in a hopelessly antiquarian system. At the same time, noting that "dangerous ideas" are being fostered in American universities, he cautions us to "cast them aside and look to our past." A victory-or-death view of America's mission against terror.

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