Saturday, March 05, 2005

Chrenkoff Scores

A Victor Davis Hanson interview.

I like Hanson's answer to this question, specifically the last sentence:

You are currently writing a history of the Peloponnesian War. What lessons does Thucydides have for the present day?

Yes, due out from Random House in August. Thucydides reminds us that, contrary to modern behavioralists, human nature is constant and thus predictable, and thus as well history is useful and not like 19th-century biology that is rendered obsolete by a radically changing technology that allows the discovery of the cell or atom. And he warns us that no people, however wealthy and free, get a pass from history, that they don't have to struggle daily to ensure that they do not lose what was given to them.