The Classicist

The Classicist: Versailles At 100

How the treaty that ended World War I shaped the modern world — and why it’s so often misunderstood.

The Classicist•September 3, 2019
The Classicist: Versailles At 100

One Hundred years after the Treaty of Versailles ended World War I, Victor Davis Hanson argues that the effects of the agreement are widely misunderstood. In this episode, we look at Versailles in the context of the wider war (and the wartime diplomacy of the era), examine the American role in World War I, parse the claim that the First World War was little more than a tragic mistake, and scrutinize claims that modern geopolitical tensions have parallels to those of 1914.

Cast

Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson

Related

Books

Judgment Calls: Finding the Way to Wise Decisions

How can we make better decisions—especially when the stakes are highest? In Judgment Calls, historian Zachary Shore tackles this timeless puzzle with intellectual daring and uncommon range. 

November 1, 2026

Articles

Armistice Day

The world breathed a sigh of relief when, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—November 11, 1918—the guns fell silent. The Great War, as World War One was then known, was over in Europe. 

November 11, 2026

Articles

Strategic Narcissism Is Making A Comeback: The Optimism Of The 1990s And Implications For Today’s Competition With Russia And China

This Monday marks thirty-six years since the beginning of the end of the Cold War. In the excerpt below from Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, I recall watching the Iron Curtain part while serving in the Second Armored Cavalry Regiment, a unit charged with border surveillance and control along the East-West German border and the West Germany-Czechoslovakia border.

November 10, 2026