“Is it Time for a '490 B.C. Project'? High Schoolers Need to Know Our Classical Heritage,” by Morgan E. Hunter, Williamson M. Evers, and Victor Davis Hanson

“What We Really Need Is a 490 B.C. Project,” by Morgan E. Hunter (“National Review”)

American students are getting bombarded with politics. The “1619 Project” tells them America, tainted by slavery, was rotten from its taproot. Civil rights icon Robert Woodson offers a “1776 Initiative” with a more positive tilt. And President Trump hopes to preempt everything by launching his “1776 Commission” charged with promoting “patriotic education."

But what if everyone is being shortsighted?

This is where a distinguished trio of scholars, Independent Research Fellow Morgan E. Hunter and Senior Fellow Williamson M. Evers plus Hoover institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson, have authored the new—and far-reaching—Independent Policy Report, "Is It Time for a “490 B.C. Project”? High Schoolers Need to Know Our Classical Heritage." The Report uncovers a far deeper problem: inadequate instruction in the foundation of the humanities and the Greco-Roman civilization that gave birth to them. The consequences of this error, say the authors, could be disastrous.

In this video, Dr. Walker interviews Dr. Evers regarding the deep insights and towering achievements of that civilization—valuable in their own right—and how such insights once enabled Americans, who were immersed in the classics, to reach beyond partisan differences by drawing on shared knowledge and lessons from the past.

But as our citizens can do so no longer, something needs to be done—which is why the authors of the report are calling for a “490 B.C. Project.”