Hanson on Keegan
Here’s a great reminiscence from Victor Davis Hanson about military historian John Keegan, who died on August 2. Hanson had a unique encounter with him, and his piece reflects on the greatness of the man not only in his professional capacity, but as a human being.
RIP.
I always like it when people of a politically conservative turn of mind turn out to be gracious in their personal lives. I like to think those things go together. I had an inkling Keegan was conservative when I read “Fields of Battle,” where he kind of dismisses the notion that North American Indians had some special rights to roam a sparsely-populated continent in perpetuity. He spent a good deal of time in the South, where he marveled, as an Englishman, at the vast unpopulated spaces. He said Grant was a great general in part because he wrote so well– his orders were always clear and precise. And his account of Henry V and the Battle of Agincourt in “The Face of Battle” is almost as good as that Shakespeare fellow’s.
Wouldn’t you say VDH had an encounter with Vidal and a friendship with Keegan? What a great story.
VDH reveals more of his personal journey in this than I have ever seen. (Works and Days is a regular read for me.) It certainly puts the lie to Obama’s assertion that, “You didn’t build that.” Yes, he had a Phd from Stanford, but academic jobs were scarce and his thesis didn’t seem to register. (Except with John Keegan.) And what a gamble it was to send it to an historian far away in Great Britain. Farming for rock bottom prices while teaching part time and writing a book was a test. VDH passed with flying colors. No wonder he has such knowledge and appreciation for the welders, the pipefitters, the auto mechanics and the many other blue collar workers who keep civilization running. He’s either done the work himself or hired it done and knows the value of it. I have always admired VDH, but he just increased his stature in my eyes.
I have read some of John Keegan’s work (Not much because war and the military are not what I read for enjoyment.) and found it worthwhile. His support for Vietnam and Iraq were welcome, coming from someone in GB. Too bad there aren’t more Brits like him. May he RIP.
I’ve never read any of Vidal’s work. Or if I did, I immediately forgot it. I did enjoy seeing him go at it with William F. Buckley on Buckley’s TV show. Vidal was an arrogant posturer who, IMO, never got the best of Buckley in their debates. There are people who will mourn his passing. He was an old (and faded) darling of the liberal intellectual crowd. I’m not one of them.
My respect for VDH could not be greater, he is an American treasure.
I must confess to never having heard of Keegan but given his support for Vietnam and Iraq and his unsentimental assessment of native American ‘rights’ (to the land and their way of life), I shall now make his acquaintance.
Vidal’s celebrity and Keegan’s relative obscurity is perhaps best illustrated by a quote, by the poet James Russell Lowell; “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne.”
RIP, Sir John. You will be missed. My personal favorite was “Mask of Command”, which examined the leadership styles of four historic commanders: Alexander the Great (“heroic”), the Duke of Wellington (“unheroic”), Grant (“anti-heroic”), and Hitler (“false heroic”). Not surprisingly, Hitler fares the worst in Keegan’s estimation, as he should. But what I found almost novel-like in their gripping intensity were Keegan’s opening paragraphs in his chapter on Grant during the Battle of Shiloh, and how Grant recovered from the surprise Confederate attack on the Union Army to salvage a hard-fought victory from what began as a disaster. Keegan could write.
One more thing. I never gave a rat’s a$$ about Gore Vidal and still don’t.
RIP, John Keegan.
No living American is better equipped to eulogize you than Victor the Great.