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).

Filter By:

Topic

Type

Recent Commentary

Analysis and Commentary

Beating the Dead Terrorist Horse

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review Online
Friday, January 8, 2010

September 11 taught us that a Mohammed Atta or a Khalid Sheikh Mohammed does not commit mass murder out of hunger, want, illiteracy, or Western oppression. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Our Year of Decision

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review Online
Thursday, January 7, 2010

Sometimes long-festering problems collide — and explode — in a single memorable year. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Bush Did It! And, Really, Bush Did It! And Bush Really Did It!

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Obama gave a rather incredible press conference about his review of security lapses. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Obama as Greek Tragedy—Part One

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Monday, January 4, 2010

The blueprint of a Sophoclean or even Euripidean tragedy is pretty straightforward. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Who Is the Enemy?

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Corner (National Review Online)
Monday, January 4, 2010

I don't think anyone knows quite what this administration's anti-terrorism policy is. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Our 2009 Chickens and Their 2010 Roost

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Thursday, December 31, 2009

A quiet year laid the groundwork for a troublesome one. . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Our Year of Obama

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Obama is in a great race: Can he remake America before the next elections? . . .

Analysis and Commentary

Hanson: Iraq, Afghanistan demonstrate the unpredictability of war

by Victor Davis Hansonvia San Jose Mercury News
Thursday, December 17, 2009

We don’t hear all that much about Iraq these days, do we?

Analysis and Commentary

Our flip-flopping wars

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Thursday, December 17, 2009

We don't hear all that much about Iraq these days, do we? . . . .

Analysis and Commentary

The Long March From California to Copenhagen

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Thursday, December 17, 2009

We are still in a great public debate between capitalism and socialism, and individual freedom versus statism — odd since hundreds of millions worldwide have escaped poverty the last 30 years due to the spread of Western-inspired free markets. . . .

Pages