land and win, so they abandoned theirrncity and their land. They relied on theirrntriremes, warships rowed by any ablebodiedrnmale available—citizen, foreigner,rnpauper, even slave—and again,rnagainst all odds, they won. This battle,rnthough, lacked the essential moral quality.rnHanson does not explain, because herncan’t, just how a land battle fought byrnlandowners produces a citizen morallyrnsuperior to a sea battle fought byrnlandowners, landless (not necessarilyrnpoor) men and paupers side-by-side. ForrnPlato it was a simple matter of class;rnHanson thinks it was a matter of occupation.rnIn either case, there is no moralityrnhere worthy of the name.rnWe are asked to believe that a pollsrncapable of survival only through a searnbattle was a polls already unworthy of itsrn”agrarian ideology.” The decline of thernpolls, he thinks, came with the ascendancyrnof the landless, who “inject their ownrnnonagrarian values into the social andrnpolitical fabric” of the agrarian city-state.rnWe all know the associations of thatrnargument. The principle that if yournfought for your country, you ought to bernallowed to participate in its government,rnHanson implicitly argues, was ethicallyrnflawed. But after Salamis, Athenianrnfarmers were quite willing to continue tornaccept two benefits: the profits of thernLaurium silver mines, and the sacrificesrnof the landless—Athens as a naval powerrnsent far more landless rowers than farmersrnout to die. All this, I think, offers evidencernof some traditional agrarian valuesrnhaving contributed to the decline, ratherrnthan the growth, of the polls. Hanson’srnchampioning of the Greek farmer hasrntherefore done him more disservice thanrnhe merits.rnThere is a curious paradox here, onernthe Greeks themselves would have ap-rnXl&EiRAI ART 6rnTHAT’S ALL, FOLKSrn”TodayrnCliffordfet,rn41.”rnis the birthday of Clarkrn—he’s 89—and Jimmy Buf-rn—Bob Edwards on NationalrnPublic Radio’s “Morning Edition,”rnDecember 25, 1995.rnpredated. The excellence of Hanson’srnbook has as its source his own deep respectrnfor farmers and farming. Its flaws,rnon the other hand, are largely traceablernto his ingrained contempt for intellectuals,rna characteristic instantly recognizablernfrom Aristophanes’ farmers, such asrnDicaeopolis or Strepsiades. This book,rnregardless of its subject, was work for thernintellect. If the task is worthy, so arernthe tools required to do it. Neither Dicaeopolisrnnor Strepsiades, it is worth remembering,rnwas capable of writing arnGreek play or even of following a philosophicalrnargument. Left in their hands,rnAthens would have been indistinguishablernfrom any other Mediterranean agriculturalrncommunity.rnWhat Hanson has seen is the disrespectrninto which the farmer’s workrnhas fallen. He knows—as the ancientsrnknew—that farming was an essentialrncomponent of civilization, and that itrnwas also symbolic of the civilizing process.rnCivilization is not an inalienablernright, and it is never secure. It is the resultrnof the work, hard work, completedrnevery day for a lifetime, by all people—rnrural and urban, farmers or merchants,rnintellectuals or craftsmen or laborers—rnwho value a civilized life, regardless ofrntheir station. That is the true legacy ofrnGreece of the polls period, of Marathon,rnof Thermopylae, of Salamis, of the greatrnart, of the exhilarating and dangerousrnideas, of the venal politicians, the ambitiousrnleaders, of those who died bravelyrnor survived by luck and opportunism—rnand indeed, of the women, children, foreigners,rnand slaves who lived and diedrnwith them but had no true speaking partrnin this great tragicomedy. For those fewrnyears, in one or two places on this earth,rnthev worked together to create somethingrnmagnificent (it is symbolicallyrnright that Acropolis workers, whetherrnfree, alien, or slave, all got equal pay).rnHanson has written a flawed and controversialrntestimony to the work of only onerngroup among them. True, they havernbeen forgotten, and unjustly so; true also,rnthey formed the backbone of what is stillrna predominantly agrarian economy. Butrnthey are not alone, or uniquely superiorrnto their fellows, and in treating them asrnthough they were Hanson risks falling intornthat mire of class-based enmity thatrnconstituted Athens’ greatest perennialrnweakness.rnCarln M.C. Green Is an assistant professorrnof classics at the University of Iowa.rnLone Star Risingrnby Allan CarlsonrnThe Thirty Years War: The Politicsrnof the Sixties Generationrnby Thomas W. PaukenrnOttawa, Illinois: Jameson Books;rn220 pp., $22.50rnReclaiming Morality in America:rnWhy Traditional MoralsrnAre Collapsing and What YournCan Do About Itrnby William MurchlsonrnNashville: Thomas Nelson;rn189 pp., $16.99rnThe development of a uniquely Texanrnconservatism has occurred overrnthe last quarter century. A central figurernin this transition was the late M.E. Bradford,rnprofessor of English at the Universityrnof Dallas, literary essayist in the traditionrnof the Vanderbilt Agrarians, andrnprominent critic of the political Lincoln.rnIn 1972, Bradford rallied to the causernof George Wallace, only to see this lastrnimportant example of Democratic populismrnhalted by a bullet in the Alabamarngovernor’s spine. With the Party of Jeffersonrnand Jackson dominated by thernMcGovern left and the new sexual andrnmoral minorities, Bradford swallowedrnhard and turned to the Party of Lincoln.rnHe became a prominent early backer ofrnRonald Reagan and convinced many ofrnhis fellow Southern intellectuals to follow.rnEven when vicious calunmies deniedrnhim the post of chairman of the NationalrnEndowment for the Humanitiesrnin 1981, Bradford remained loyal to thernpopulist conservatism found within thernGOP. He led his own last charge in 1992rnon behalf of Pat Buchanan’s first presidentialrncampaign. Two years later, conservativernRepublicanism was in the ascendancernin the old Texas Republic,rnheralded by Senator Phil Gramm’s presidentialrnbid, the election of a Republicanrngovernor, significant gains in the staternlegislature, and the victory of a strongrnmovement conservative as chairman ofrnthe state party. A new magazine, ThernTexan Republic, even emerged to givernvoice and definition to these unlikelyrnevents.rnThe books under review here are bestrnunderstood as expressions of this newrn34/CHRONICLESrnrnrn