Donald Kagan, leading neo-conservative historian, died at the age of 89

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NEW YORK (AP) Donald Kagan, a prominent classical scholar, controversial defender of traditional education and architect of neo-conservative foreign policy, has died at age 89.

NEW YORK (AP) Donald Kagan, a prominent classical scholar, controversial defender of traditional education and architect of neo-conservative foreign policy, has died at age 89.

Kagan, a professor emeritus at Yale University and father of historians Robert and Frederick Kagan, died Aug. 6 at a retirement home in Washington, DC His death was announced by Yale and confirmed Wednesday by his children. .

Donald Kagan was a native Lithuanian, grew up in New York City, who studied ancient Greece in college and was inspired by the fascinating notion that man is insignificant. Regarding himself as a Greek in his soul, he wrote many books either in whole or in part about the rise and fall of the golden age of Athens, notably a famous and popular four volume series on the devastating War. Peloponnesian between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies.

A study of the Peloponnesian War is a source of wisdom about the behavior of people under the enormous pressure imposed by the hot plague, and civil strife, he wrote in 2003, and the limitations to which not it prevented work.

Kagan expanded on his belief that the Peloponnesian conflict held important contemporary lessons in On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, which came out in 1995. With a narrative stretching from ancient Greece and Rome to the two world wars in 20th century and the Cold War followed, he decided that some of the most horrific killings would have been avoided if political leaders had dealt with the abductors. He noted the hesitation of the allies to take Germany before World War I and World War II. He blames the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in part on Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchevs ’understanding that President John F. Kennedy was afraid to use military force.

The Cuban Missile Crisis has shown that it is not enough for the state that wants to maintain peace and the status quo to have more power, Kagan wrote. The crisis is because the more powerful state also has a leader who has failed to convince his opponent of his will to use its power for that purpose.

Through his books, speeches and media commentary, Kagan has become the leading conservative voice in the liberal field of history, supporting military action abroad and following the Western canon at home. He supported the wars in Vietnam and Iraq and questioned the patriotism of the protesters. He hated the multicultural and pointless programs that promoted a special course on Western civilization at Yale. He angered colleagues when, as dean of Yale College, he told incoming freshmen in 1990 that failure to focus on the West was at the risk of our students, our country, and our hopes. for a democratic, liberal society that is emerging around the world today.

Don should remain the Tory’s back-bencher, Peter Brooks, chairman of Yales ’comparative literature department, told The Washington Post. He’s best as a gadfly, not a dean.

In 1997, Kagan joined Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other future officials of the George W. Bush administration in endorsing the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century and its mission statement calling for a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity. Donald and son Frederick Kagan collaborated in 2000 on While America Sleeps: Self-Deprivation, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today, which received increased attention after the terrorist attacks in September 11, 2001.

President Bush awarded Donald Kagan a National Humanities Medal in 2002 for his distinguished scholar on the glories of ancient Greece and for teaching generations of the important heritage of classical civilization.

Born in Kurenai, Lithuania, Kagan was just 2 when he and his newly widowed mother moved to the US and settled in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, where as a child his careful view of humanity was shaped by anti-Semitic gangs threatening him. He is an undergraduate at Brooklyn College, received masters in classical studies at Brown University and a PhD in history from Ohio State University.

Like fellow neo-conservatives like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, he was a Democrat in his youth who turned to the right in response to the cultural and political unrest in the 1960s. While teaching at Cornell University, he resented the schools agreement. in 1969 to begin a program in Black Studies after armed protesters occupied a campus building. He compared the decision to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlains who appeased the Nazis in the 1930s and soon left for Yale.

Thucydides was his model of the historian and Kagan shared with ancient Greek scholars a dark view of human nature, how in nations morality prevailed. Kagan likes to invoke Thucydides ’conclusion that wars were fought with a combination of fear, self-interest and dignity.

I used to believe that peace was the normal situation for humanity, but the more I look, the more I see very rare peace, Kagan told Yale Alumni Magazine in 2002. Wars always happen, so I have to ask, Why is there still peace?

Hillel Italy, The Associated Press

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