revitalizing history

Revitalizing History

The Hoover Institution was originally founded in 1919 as a repository of records about war and peacetime. Today, the Library & Archives holds among the world’s most important historical collections, supporting our fellowship’s efforts to inform policymakers and educate current and future generations about valuable lessons from the past.

What distinguishes Hoover from other think tanks is that it not only sits at a leading university that continues to blaze trails at the frontiers of technological innovation, but also has a Library & Archive with among the world’s most important collections of modern history.

Condoleezza Rice

What our Fellows are saying

Niall Ferguson

Milbank Family Senior Fellow

Stephen Kotkin

Kleinheinz Senior Fellow

Victor Davis Hanson

Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow

“The historical act is essentially one of reconstitution of past thought. . . . You’re juxtaposing that past thought with your own thought, the thought of your own time  in order to be informed by it. You’re not studying it for its own sake; you’re interested in its implications, in the light that it sheds on your own predicament.”

—Milbank Family Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson quoting historian R. G. Collingwood in an interview with Tyler Cowen, Mercatus Center, George Mason University, July 28, 2021

“Russia is a great power, but not the great power….In trying to match the West or at least manage the differential between Russia and the West, they resort to coercion.... The worst part of this dynamic in Russian history is the conflation of the Russian state with a personal ruler. Instead of getting the strong state that they want, to manage the gulf with the West and push and force Russia up to the highest level, they instead get a personalist regime. They get a dictatorship, which usually becomes a despotism. They’ve been in this bind for a while because they cannot relinquish that sense of exceptionalism, that aspiration to be the greatest power, but they cannot match that in reality.”

—Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin in the New Yorker, March 11, 2022

“Until recently, classical education served as the foundation of the wider liberal arts curriculum, which in turn defined the mission of the traditional university. Classical learning dedicated itself to turning out literate citizens who could read and write well, express themselves, and make sense of the confusion of the present by drawing on the wisdom of the past. Students grounded in the classics appreciated the history of their civilization and understood the rights and responsibilities of their unique citizenship. Universities, then, acted as cultural custodians, helping students understand our present values in the context of a 2,500-year tradition that began with the ancient Greeks.”

—Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson in City Journal, Autumn 2008

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Niall Ferguson

Milbank Family Senior Fellow

Niall Ferguson, MA, DPhil, FRSE, is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the…

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Victor Davis Hanson

Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history. Hanson was a…

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Stephen Kotkin

Kleinheinz Senior Fellow

In addition to his Hoover fellowship, Stephen Kotkin is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the…

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Frank Dikötter

Senior Fellow (adjunct)

Frank Dikötter is chair professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong and senior fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution. Before moving to Asia…

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Michael R. Auslin

Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia

Michael Auslin, PhD, is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian…

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Timothy Garton Ash

Senior Fellow (adjunct)

Timothy Garton Ash, a senior fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution, is an internationally acclaimed contemporary historian whose work has focused on…

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H.R. McMaster

Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow

H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow…

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Norman M. Naimark

Senior Fellow (courtesy)

Norman M. Naimark is a senior fellow (courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. He is also the Robert and Florence McDonnell Professor of East European Studies…

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Anna Grzymala-Busse

Senior Fellow (courtesy)

Anna Grzymala-Busse is a senior fellow (courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. Grzymala-Busse is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor in the…

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Hoover History Lab

Hoover History Lab

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