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

It Would Have Been Easier Just to Tell the Truth

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Corner (National Review Online)
Saturday, September 26, 2009

Given the recent arrests of several jihadist plotters, we can be thankful that Obama did not, as once promised in various early manifestations, end renditions, wiretaps, intercepts, and the Patriot Act ("shoddy and dangerous")...

Analysis and Commentary

A Fishy Tale

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Thursday, September 24, 2009

Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California...

Analysis and Commentary

Barack Obama, College Administrator

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Wednesday, September 23, 2009

If you are confused by the first nine months of the Obama administration, take solace that there is at least a pattern...

Analysis and Commentary

Two-Front Wars — Theirs and Ours

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Corner (National Review Online)
Monday, September 21, 2009

Something is not quite right about the conventional wisdom about the Afghanistan war...

Analysis and Commentary

A Devolving, Depressing, and Debased Debate

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Sunday, September 20, 2009

Barack Obama is charismatic...

Analysis and Commentary

The Rise of the Uncouth

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Pajamas Media
Monday, September 14, 2009

The historian Thucydides warned about the escalating violent language and behavior that we are witnessing...

Analysis and Commentary

Last Night Didn’t Quite Do It

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Thursday, September 10, 2009

Obama’s problem with warning Americans about bickering, partisan politics, lying, and misrepresentation last night is that his green advisor Van Jones just left after it was disclosed that he called Republicans “a–holes”, whites polluters / more prone to mass murder in schools, and charged the former President with involvement in 9/11...

In the News

A Great Opportunity and Great Danger Tonight for Obama

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Corner (National Review Online)
Wednesday, September 9, 2009

I think what most are asking about health-care reform are very simple questions — and which party that answers them best will gain public support...

Analysis and Commentary

The Second World War — 70 Years Later

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Thursday, September 3, 2009

Seventy years ago this week, on Sept. 1, 1939, the Second World War broke out with the German invasion of Poland...

Analysis and Commentary

'Senator High And Mighty'

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Forbes
Saturday, August 29, 2009

By now almost everyone has weighed in on the legacy of Sen. Ted Kennedy, who passed away this week after a year-long struggle with a cancerous brain tumor...

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