Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: If you want to enhance your defenses against the onslaught of multiculturalism, you can't go wrong with this book. (If you are in favor of the multi-cultural agenda, you will hate the book or change your mind). The first half of the book discusses what American (and Western) culture owes to the Greeks. I have found the information in this section invaluable in my arguments with multiculturalists and other haters of the West. The second half of the book focuses on what is happening in the universities today, and should serve to raise the hackles of anyone who cares about education.
Rating:
Summary: Lighting a conflagration under the university curriculum.
Review: It is difficult to describe this marvelous and passionate exposition on the love of learning. Drives the reader to consider a substantial investment in the Loeb Classic library.
Rating: 
Summary: You will want to read the Iliad again.....
Review: It may seem that another reader's review of this book is superfluous. The battle lines are clearly drawn. You either hate Hanson or you love him. When I say that I love him, I am simply saving those who hate him the trouble of reading further.But for those of you who are new to the debate, there may be some value in reading on. Victor Davis Hanson emerged on the scene in the early 1980s with a wonderful little book called 'The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece'. This readable, engaging tome was taken up by, among others, John Keegan who embraced some of the ideas and began to publicise them. 'Who Killed Homer' emerged much later. It is a brilliant polemic ' a fact that is often missed by the critics who belabour Hanson with the charge of being too controversial ' I think that was rather the point. Hanson wrote in despair and anger. He despaired of the state of education in our colleges and universities. And he has written an impassioned, polemical diatribe on the subject. As Stephen Ozment remarked, 'this is a book for anyone who has loved or hated a college or university'. Like Bernard Knox who as a young man lashed out at the excessive technicality of classical studies (after reading an extended study in a classical journal entitled 'The Carrot in Ancient Greece'), Hanson is incensed at the dearth of true learning at universities. He would have us go back to general principals. He would have professors stop publishing and start TEACHING. First and foremost, Hanson makes the case for Greek civilisation. However we get our Greek, he would say, we must get it. Western Culture, he says, is largely founded on Greek ideas, filtered through intervening civilisations and systems of thought. I despair of the school curriculum I see these days. My young nephews are offered, through something called 'social studies', the fleeting opportunity in Grade 4 and 5 to learn about ancient cultures. The problem is that it is left to the teacher to decide WHICH cultures they study. It is entirely possible for students in Ontario to go through school without EVER studying Greek or Roman history. And whatever benefits may be derived from the study of meso-american culture or Chinese culture, they pale beside the importance of those which can be obtained through a study of the Greeks. For the study of other cultures does not speak to the core values of western civilisation. The values which, transmitted down through the centuries to us from the Greeks, have made our culture (for the time being) the dominant culture in the world. Here is Hanson on the subject: 'Yet as magnificent and accessible as the Odyssey is, the Iliad is the greater poem, the more difficult and important challenge to teachers of Greek, who, if they be teachers or Greek at all, must teach the Iliad and teach it frequently. Most subsequent Greek ideas ' learning comes through pain, reason is checked by fate, men are social creatures, the truth only emerges through dissent and open criticism, human life is tragically short and therefore comes with obligations, characters is a matter of matching words with deeds, the most dangerous animal is the natural beast within us, religion is separate from and subordinate to political authority, private property should be immune from government coercion, even aristocratic leaders ignore the will of the assembly at their peril ' start with Homer, especially the Iliad, but never again are they presented so honestly, and without either apology or elaboration.' And these Greek values, he maintains were UNIQUE in the world. Democracy, free speech, separation of church and state, a civilian army ' these idea (and others) ALL began in Greece and nowhere else. And yet the general public in the west knows less about itss origins that EVER before. The dust jacket notes, ''the formal study of the origins of Western Culture is disappearing from American life at precisely the time when it is most needed to explain, guide and warn the public about both the wonders and dangers of their own culture.' What you will come away with from this book, if you have an open mind at all, is either a new (or perhaps renewed) appreciation for Greek culture. You will want to read the Iliad again and you will want your children to read it.
Rating:
Summary: You will want to read the Iliad again.....
Review: It may seem that another reader�s review of this book is superfluous. The battle lines are clearly drawn. You either hate Hanson or you love him. When I say that I love him, I am simply saving those who hate him the trouble of reading further. But for those of you who are new to the debate, there may be some value in reading on. Victor Davis Hanson emerged on the scene in the early 1980s with a wonderful little book called �The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece�. This readable, engaging tome was taken up by, among others, John Keegan who embraced some of the ideas and began to publicise them. �Who Killed Homer� emerged much later. It is a brilliant polemic � a fact that is often missed by the critics who belabour Hanson with the charge of being too controversial � I think that was rather the point. Hanson wrote in despair and anger. He despaired of the state of education in our colleges and universities. And he has written an impassioned, polemical diatribe on the subject. As Stephen Ozment remarked, �this is a book for anyone who has loved or hated a college or university�. Like Bernard Knox who as a young man lashed out at the excessive technicality of classical studies (after reading an extended study in a classical journal entitled �The Carrot in Ancient Greece�), Hanson is incensed at the dearth of true learning at universities. He would have us go back to general principals. He would have professors stop publishing and start TEACHING. First and foremost, Hanson makes the case for Greek civilisation. However we get our Greek, he would say, we must get it. Western Culture, he says, is largely founded on Greek ideas, filtered through intervening civilisations and systems of thought. I despair of the school curriculum I see these days. My young nephews are offered, through something called �social studies�, the fleeting opportunity in Grade 4 and 5 to learn about ancient cultures. The problem is that it is left to the teacher to decide WHICH cultures they study. It is entirely possible for students in Ontario to go through school without EVER studying Greek or Roman history. And whatever benefits may be derived from the study of meso-american culture or Chinese culture, they pale beside the importance of those which can be obtained through a study of the Greeks. For the study of other cultures does not speak to the core values of western civilisation. The values which, transmitted down through the centuries to us from the Greeks, have made our culture (for the time being) the dominant culture in the world. Here is Hanson on the subject: �Yet as magnificent and accessible as the Odyssey is, the Iliad is the greater poem, the more difficult and important challenge to teachers of Greek, who, if they be teachers or Greek at all, must teach the Iliad and teach it frequently. Most subsequent Greek ideas � learning comes through pain, reason is checked by fate, men are social creatures, the truth only emerges through dissent and open criticism, human life is tragically short and therefore comes with obligations, characters is a matter of matching words with deeds, the most dangerous animal is the natural beast within us, religion is separate from and subordinate to political authority, private property should be immune from government coercion, even aristocratic leaders ignore the will of the assembly at their peril � start with Homer, especially the Iliad, but never again are they presented so honestly, and without either apology or elaboration.� And these Greek values, he maintains were UNIQUE in the world. Democracy, free speech, separation of church and state, a civilian army � these idea (and others) ALL began in Greece and nowhere else. And yet the general public in the west knows less about itss origins that EVER before. The dust jacket notes, ��the formal study of the origins of Western Culture is disappearing from American life at precisely the time when it is most needed to explain, guide and warn the public about both the wonders and dangers of their own culture.� What you will come away with from this book, if you have an open mind at all, is either a new (or perhaps renewed) appreciation for Greek culture. You will want to read the Iliad again and you will want your children to read it.
Rating:
Summary: Make this the one book you read on Ancient Greece this year!
Review: It's no surprise to me that some people wish to suppress and villify this book. On the other hand, it is equally no surprise to me that this book has its defenders. All in all, I think one should make up their own mind about it as I have done. Read it yourself and come to your own conclusion. One thing's for sure, one way or the other this book WILL have implications. "BRING HOMER BACK TO THE PEOPLE, OR THE PEOPLE WILL TAKE HIM BACK ON THEIR OWN OF NECESSITY" seems to be the latent message in this well-written and honest book. I wholeheartedly endorse this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Shrill and hyperbolic - whatever happened to Greek stoicism?
Review: Since the trial of Socrates, it is deemed fashionable in some circles to condemn intellectuals for the corruption of youth, an ancient tradition which Hanson and Heath proudly carry on in "Who killed Homer?". A quirky and polemic book designed for provocation, it really has more to tell us about contemporary American academia and political discourse than about ancient Greece. In short, the authors argue or rather insist that the classics are in demise at the American university, that this can be directly attributed to the incompetence and careerism of the present generation of professors, and that this decline is not merely an academic matter, but has dire cultural ramifications as well, as the wisdom of the Greeks "alone inaugurates the Western experience" and is essential for understanding contemporary society and values. First of, the blunt assertion that the classics are truly and irrevocably dying may baffle some teachers, who will tell you that they had more classics majors and undergrad enrollments than ever, at the time when "Who killed Homer?" was still in writing. In any case, Homer seems comfortably safer today than he was in, say, 410 AD when the Goths sacked Rome and Germanic tribes were streaming into the empire. Even if we concede this point for the sake of the argument, however, it remains doubtful if today's scholars, whom Hanson and Heath have singled out as the amoral defilers of tradition, are indeed alone to blame for the development. Rather, the problems they diagnose are things that afflict all the humanities, and the entire university, for that matter. And while some of it certainly is down to the lacking ethos of individual professors, a more impartial observation reveals that the failure lies at a higher level, the inability of the university as an institution to address its own changing situation. Real issues such as these - the social and economic pressures that shape the structures of our schools, the utilitarian or ill-defined goals with which present day students are imbued, and a contemporary culture which does not encourage the kind of meditative, in-depth learning that the study of ancient texts demands - require a serious and careful analysis that Hanson and Heath are unable or unwilling to provide. Instead, the authors assume that given enough ad hominem attacks and righteous anger, the ills of Western civilization will be cured. The tone is accusatory, shrill and dismissive throughout, which is fun to read, but not particularly endearing. Still, the best parts of "Who killed Homer?" are the hilarious quotes from contemporary essays and books, so high-flown and obtusely written that they are indeed ripe for parody. But while Hanson and Heath are justified in their lampooning of high theory and pretentious jargon, their own self-righteous meandering gets tedious just as fast, and the solutions they themselves offer are naïve at best. For example, the teaching methods they envision seem more suited to a teenaged audience than university students, who are supposed to begin to distance themselves from the subject of study and learn critical thinking. The notion of learning Latin and ancient Greek to actually "think like the Greeks" falls into the same adolescent vein (besides, whether one really leads to the other is debatable). But Hanson and Heath just love the Greeks and descend with the tempestuous fury of Poseidon upon those whom they perceive to defile that noble tradition: "multiculturalism", "postmodernism", "feminism", "political correctness" and all the other beloved spectres of the academic right. Before long, Hanson and Heath abandon their original subject in favour of a nebulous lamentation about contemporary moral decay, and it quickly becomes apparent that their real agenda is not merely the rescue of the classics, but rather more sweeping and political. So what about Homer, actually? After all, the main argument here is that the Greeks deserve a unique kind of attention as the central progenitors of Western civilization (indeed, "Greek" and "Western" are blended together in a rather curious and undefined mixture). True enough, Greco-Roman culture is certainly one of the cornerstones of our culture, the other being Christianity. Christianity the authors find "classical, unmistakably Western in spirit", it may come as a surprise to some. It is as if there was no "real" history after 400 AD, and as if the enormous influence that Puritanism and other modern schools of thought had in shaping American society simply did not exist. Hanson and Heath also seem unable to grasp that democracy has come a long way, and that some of the aspects of Greek society, like imperialism, slavery or the subordination of women, are hardly role-models for today. Surely it would be unfair to focus on these failings at the expense of the achievements, and the Greeks were still the most advanced civilization of their time. But the romanticized and olive-coloured picture which the authors paint here with broad, generalizing brushes, and their narrow and exclusive focus cross the line into revisionism. And even the most passionate Hellenophile most acknowledge that laws and customs which worked fine in small, Mediterranean city-states 2500 years ago are no patent solution for the complex challenges of the global, industrialized, information-age society of the 21st century. An inspiration, surely, and a vital tradition, among others - but not a blueprint. But that is what the authors take their beloved Greeks for. "Even the most vociferous academic critic of the West would prefer to fly Swissair [or] check into the Mayo Clinic" they argue, "rather than board a Congolese airliner [or] leave his appendix in Managua General... Why? The Greeks." Indeed, the industrial age, powered flight, airline security, modern surgical techniques - why not call it all "Greek"? Absurd and a little sad, for Hanson and Heath seem unable to celebrate Greek culture without downgrading all others, which stains their idyllic canvas. In the end, what started out as a seemingly noble cause degenerates not only into eyebrow-singeing assaults on their fellow academics, but into similarly chauvinistic Western triumphalism at large. So unnecessary, so avoidable, so tragic - and in that respect, so Greek.
Rating: 
Summary: Blustering, misconceived attempt to revive Greek
Review: The authors and I agree about just one thing: Greek is a beautiful language, well worth learning. Sorry, two things: start with Lattimore's translations and Dodds' The Greeks and the Irrational, and if they don't fire your imagination, forget it. However, it's tragic that a book so eager to defend the magnificence of Greek culture should have been written by such illiterates. The prose is deeply dull, and the authors are fond of making idiotic pronouncements; at one point, they say that no-one has written about the grim side of farming since Hesiod, a claim that would leave Thomas Hardy and Mary Webb surprised, as well as Tolstoy. Their outline of the pastoral tradition mysteriously excludes Theocritus, too, even though his take on hill-farming is far less misty than Virgil's. One could go on nitpicking forever, but the main objection must be that they make Greek seem much more difficult than it really is; this we don't need. Moreover, their whole thesis is that we should learn Greek in order to be more like the Greeks. This leads to a highly selective portrait of the Greeks; presumably the authors don't really want us to spend all our money on flutegirls and shellfish.... hold on, we already do that. As for the continuous warfare, the empire-building, and the trimmers at Delphi and the dummies at Sparta, and lastly the slaves (to paraphrase MacNeice) forget it. What the authors never consider is that the practices we all like about the Greeks might actually be inseparable from what we don't like. A better motivation for studying Greek is simply to hav eth supreme cultural experience of reading epic and tragedy in the original. Oh, and the Gospels too. This book is Culture for Hicks. Dump this dullsville polemic and get Homer out again. Or try Ted Hughes's marvellous Tales from Ovid.
Rating:
Summary: Who, indeed?
Review: The authors of this book claim that the study of the classics (Greek and Roman) is dying, or already dead, in American universities. This may very well be true. But beyond that, I failed to get their point. First they argue that no other civilizations have anything better to offer for an explanation of the life we live today than the classical Western ideas of Greece and Rome. No argument there. That is why the West is dominant in the world and why others envy us and many wish to emulate us (or destroy us). One chapter quotes many books and articles by modern classicists. These quotations are laughable in their incomprehensibility. This, I believe, is the authors' point, and it is well taken. But so what? No one but other academic classicists could read this stuff, and they probably don't understand it either. They seem to believe that no professor of classics actually wants to teach but only to find ways to get time off (with pay) to write incomprehensible books and articles. The authors have a lot of spleen to vent in regard to the study and teaching of the classics, and they've vented it. I hope they feel better. They have my sympathy, but it's unlikely that their book will have any practical effect. They go on to say how difficult it is to learn Greek or Latin and that without visiting ancient sites and soaking up classical history, the student can't really "know" classics. It seems a lot of work for someone who just wants a college education to secure a better job. Most people can't afford to luxuriate in the classics for four years only to find themselves without a usable degree.
Rating:
Summary: Just what academia needs!
Review: The authors' attack on the fads that have left the study of ancient Greeks and Romans a vast wasteland -- increasingly denuded of population, to boot -- is precisely the kind of writing academia needs to produce more often. It's not only in their field, but also in French, history, and many other areas of the humanities that one easily can earn a degree these days without learning anything of lasting value. (What proportion of French majors are acquainted with Racine, Corneille, and Moliere? They can easily get through in many major universities solely on upper-division courses in Francophone Africa's literature, however.) Those fields need to give us such screeds, as well. One factor in the decline in enrollments in Latin and, particularly, Greek is the mass enrollment in our colleges and universities. As graduate programs have moved away from individual consideration of applications to reliance on test scores and g.p.a.s, students with a mind to pursue graduate study (and what else can one do with a Greek degree?) have steered away from these more difficult languages and toward the easy ones: French, Spanish, and Italian, in particular. I know; I did it myself, then taught myself Greek at home _after_ law school. Classicists like Hanson and Heath are also partly to blame for the decline in enrollments. At one point in this text, they say that one might at least expect Greeks to enroll in Greek; then, though, they recount a history of Greeks showing up, seeing that the language is pronounced differently in classicist Greek than in real Greek, and drop out. Finally, they note that they cannot believe the ancients actually had decided that all of their vowels should make the long "e" sound. Modern Greek has four ways to spell the long e, while English has nine. We do not know when the three Greek letters and one dipthong came to be pronounced "e," it's true, and perhaps in classical Athens, all Greek letters were pronounced as their Latin analogues are in modern English. (How we can surmise that the Greek consonants whose sounds do not occur in English -- gamma, chi, and rho -- were pronounced exactly as g, k, and r in classical Athens is an easier question to answer: we cannot. The evidence for vowel pronunciation is from ancient poetry's meter, but consonants do not affect meter, and even if they did, it would be a spectacular coincidence if the modern Greeks were "wrong" about all of them and a language from distant England had them all precisely "right.") There is, however, some evidence from the living part of the ancient Greek language, the Puristic Greek of the Orthodox Church, that is difficult to gainsay: in the Liturgy, there occurs a hymn whose origin is at least as old as the second century A.D. Phonetically, it's: Eis Agios. Eis Kyrios. Iesous Christos. Eis Thoxan Theou Patros. Amen. Note that in "classicist" Greek, the beginnings of the four lines are not the same, but in (actual) Greek as spoken by the Greeks of today, each line begins with "ees" and ends with "os" (an "o" sound we don't have in English, followed by s). Can the hymn originally not have had its obvious rhyme scheme, and only have come to have it as the vowels' pronunciation changed to long e? I posit that this hymn proves that the vowel pronunciation of today's Greeks is at least as old as the second century A.D. Refusal of classicists to pronounce at least the consonants the way Greeks do, absent any evidence that the ancients pronounced them as we pronounce our English vowels, is simple disrespect; I think it to be related to the nineteenth-century German slur that modern Greeks aren't really descended from their ancient ancestors. It's no wonder Greeks commonly drop Davis's and Heath's classes. And I say this as a non-Greek! In all, however, it's a good book, one well worth reading. My wife and I are persuaded that our home-schooled children should learn Greek, and so they will benefit from this text, which I thank the authors for writing.
Rating:
Summary: The classics corrupted by materialist scholars
Review: The core of WKH? (as Hanson and Heath charmingly call their own book) is a savage indictment of university Classicists. The answer to the question "who killed Homer and why?" is classicists, and for filthy lucre. For money, career, fame and professional advancement, classicists have betrayed the Greeks by preferring academic heights to actual teaching, by turning Classical Greece into one more subject for multiculturalist, postmodernist, queer theorist, what-have-you studies, by ignoring the greatness and uniqueness of Greek culture and not caring what the Greeks actually have to say. The professors don't live like Greeks, they fail to match word and deed. So disinterested grad students (with their eyes firmly on the professorial heights) do all the actual teaching, and the students aren't coming anymore. And Hanson and Heath confess that they don't believe that university Classics can be saved. (Incidentally, the authors make it pretty clear that taking the Greeks seriously is antithetical -- and may be a good antidote -- to nonsensical multiculturalism. There is truth, there is virtue, and all things are not equal.) Interestingly, this core is sandwiched between introductory chapters which set out the unique importance of the Greeks and also the history of Classical Studies, emphasizing the sometimes revolutionary contributions of amateur classicists and a closing chapter giving an introductory syllabus and commentary to aspiring amateur classicists, ten books by Greeks and ten books about Greeks. Hanson and Heath say they hope for another Homer, but they seem to be sending out a homing beacon to another Schliemann, Parry or Ventris. Good for them. Their devastating scorched earth criticism and their fluent, accessible writing make this book a fun read as well as a compelling one.
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