CAN SOCIETAL ANNIHILATION HAPPEN AGAIN? Victor Davis Hanson Discusses The End of Everything W hat caused the obliteration of major civilizations, and can that happen again even to America? Victor Davis Hanson, the esteemed classicist and military historian, discusses the themes and concerns of his important new book, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation , with Jack Fowler, host of The Victor Davis Hanson Show . Hanson’s investigation into
the annihilation of Thebes (335 BC), Carthage (146 BC), the Byzantine Empire (AD 1452), and the Aztec Empire (AD 1521) also offers a powerful warning to an aloof America.
FOWLER What do you mean by annihilation? And by “the end of everything,” you do indeed mean everything, yes? HANSON Yes, most wars end in stalemate or defeat, but not utter annihilation defined by the elimination of a culture, language, people, physical space, and long customs and traditions, which are so destroyed or scattered that the civilization itself disappears. Yet, on a few rare occasions in history, defeats can descend into extinc-
HANSON At the time of their disappearances, they were not fully cognizant that (1) they were in decline, and (2) their enemies were existential and wished to be rid of them in toto . All had remarkable capital cities with impregnable fortifications or so they thought. All had allies they also assumed would rally to their defense. And all misjudged entirely the nature of the would-be conquerors they faced outside their walls. They had never quite experienced men like Alexander the Great, Scipio Aemil-
tion. After such destruction, there are no more Boeotian Thebes, no more Punic Carthage, no Byzantine Constantinople, and no more Aztec Tenochtitlan. Period. FOWLER You write that the “rendezvous with finality” is something that seems unthinkable, until it happens. What is it about a people Thebans, Aztecs, Byzantines, Carthaginians that deluded them while they faced an apocalypse?
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20 • AMAC Magazine
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