It is a good thing Father's not home: The Father of Us All by Victor Davis Hansen

Victor Davis Hanson is an expert in the Peloponnesian war. In high school I remember reading his book the difficulty of damaging Greek agriculture in a local college library. The library had a tower with this perfect academia aesthetic for reading books of ancient history. I sat in that library happy as a clam reading that book, and it shows the deep knowledge that VDH has on the subjects of agriculture and the Peloponnesian war. The Father of Us All: War and History Ancient and Modern is proof that expertise in one subject does not translate to expertise in others, even related subjects.

This collection of edited articles was released in 2010, and it shows in almost every page. The takes are so wrong they are sad. There is a lot of praise for the surge in Iraq, the status of Afghan democracy, and other things that time has proven to be embarrassing failure. It was entirely possible to foresee this as the time, as many who where paying attention, and who were not blinded by their views. 

That would be enough to throw his conclusions into question if it wasn't for another glaring issue with all these issues. Hanson keeps coming back to the Peloponnesian war again and again for examples no mater how tenuous the connection. Either he is using it because the Peloponnesian war has the recognizable name or because that is his only area of expertise, and he is genuinely ignorant of the other wars that we know less about. Now I don't want to cast any aspersions, but that cuts out a lot of potential lessons. 

All in all this book was not fun. Reading and writing about it have been like pulling teeth. This has taken forever to write, and I am not sure I said anything worthwhile. I think that is the final statement I want to make about this book. There is nothing worthwhile in this book.