Victor Davis Hanson

Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow
Awards and Honors:
Statesmanship Award from the Claremont Institute
(2006)
Biography: 

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 National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–93), a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991–92), the annual Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Visiting Fellow in History at Hillsdale College (2004–), the Visiting Shifron Professor of Military History at the US Naval Academy (2002–3),and the William Simon Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University (2010).

In 1991 he was awarded an American Philological Association Excellence in Teaching Award. He received the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism (2002), presented the Manhattan's Institute's Wriston Lecture (2004), and was awarded the National Humanities Medal (2007) and the Bradley Prize (2008).

Hanson is the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history and essays on contemporary culture. He has written or edited twenty-four books, the latest of which is The Case for Trump (Basic Books, 2019). His other books include The Second World Wars (Basic Books, 2017); The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost - from Ancient Greece to Iraq (Bloomsbury 2013); The End of Sparta (Bloomsbury, 2011); The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern (Bloomsbury, 2010); Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (ed.) (Princeton, 2010); The Other Greeks (California, 1998); The Soul of Battle (Free Press, 1999); Carnage and Culture (Doubleday, 2001); Ripples of Battle (Doubleday, 2003); A War Like No Other (Random House, 2005); The Western Way of War (Alfred Knopf, 1989; 2nd paperback ed., University of California Press, 2000); The Wars of the Ancient Greeks (Cassell, 1999; paperback ed., 2001); and Mexifornia: A State of Becoming (Encounter, 2003), as well as two books on family farming, Fields without Dreams (Free Press, 1995) and The Land Was Everything (Free Press, 1998). Currently, he is a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services and a weekly columnist for the National Review Online.

Hanson received a BA in classics at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1975), was a fellow at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens (1977–78), and received his PhD in classics from Stanford University (1980).

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Recent Commentary

Analysis and Commentary

No Need for Hubris on Matters of National Security

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Corner (National Review Online)
Thursday, February 18, 2010

Vice President Joe Biden recently opined that he did not think the terrorists were able to pull off another attack of the 9/11 magnitude: "They are, in fact, not able to do anything remotely like they were able to do in the past.". . .

Analysis and Commentary

The Tragic Truth of War

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

What we dare not say: Killing the enemy brings victory. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Where Did Our Real Wealth Go?

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Economists have given us all the usual diagnoses of what went wrong in a now bankrupt Greece — high taxes, tax cheating, too generous retirements, unsustainable entitlements, government corruption, and anemic demography. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

The New, Upside-Down War on Terror

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Corner (National Review Online)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Is there any logic in the confusion of the Obama administration's actions and statements on fighting the war on terror? . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Bidenism

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Monday, February 15, 2010

Consider for a minute the Joe Biden odyssey on Iraq, because it has proven a variable primer on how the political class reinvented itself depending on the current pulse of the battlefield. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Trouble with elitist theories

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Thursday, February 11, 2010

WHAT'S behind the Tea Party protests, low approval ratings for Congress, distrust of the media and unease with experts in the Obama administration? . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Why Did Rome Fall—And Why Does It Matter Now?

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Thursday, February 11, 2010

A German scholar twenty years ago listed, I recall, some 210 reasons for the collapse of the Western empire. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Victory -- How Quaint an Idea!

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Defeating Islamic terrorism is not only definable and possible, but closer than ever before. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Why Fear Big Government?

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Monday, February 8, 2010

There is no reason to review all the standard reasons why the American people are terrified of an all-powerful federal or state government. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Civilization’s Lies

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Friday, February 5, 2010

One of the sad characteristics of contemporary Western society is the tendency to embrace noble lies. . . .

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