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 some 250 articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history and essays on contemporary culture. He has written or edited twenty-three books, including 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 and PJ Media.

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

Featured

Public Discontent Has Fueled The Trump Phenomenon

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Thursday, December 10, 2015

The more analysts try to figure out Donald Trump’s appeal, the more they sound baffled.

Analysis and Commentary

Liberal Nihilism In A Nutshell

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Monday, December 7, 2015

Barack Obama entered office in 2009 with overwhelming popular goodwill and solid majorities in both houses of Congress. He chose not to translate that political heft into passing “comprehensive immigration reform” (i.e., open borders and amnesties) or more gun control.

Analysis and Commentary

Mass Murder And Identity Politics

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Monday, December 7, 2015

Too many Muslim immigrants are angry rather than grateful toward their new country.

Featured

Erdogan's Turkey Is A Dubious Ally

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Thursday, December 3, 2015

Turkey often appeals to the West for support, given its longtime membership in NATO. Now, Turkish leadership is in a shouting match with Russia's provocative president, Vladimir Putin, over Turkey's downing of a Russian jet in probable Turkish airspace.

Featured

Yesterday’s Giants, Today’s Dwarves

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, December 1, 2015

The Left’s highly selective application of today’s standards to yesterday’s heroes.

Analysis and Commentary

The Upside Down Campus Protester

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Monday, November 30, 2015

One common denominator characterizes almost all unrest on college campuses: the demands to create more “-studies” courses (black, Latino, feminist, gay, etc.) and thus to hire more -studies professors.

Analysis and Commentary

Campus Administrators Are Reaping What They Have Sown

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Thursday, November 26, 2015

The recent wave of student protests is aimed at liberal professors and administrators. Current student anger eerily fits the pattern of most left-wing unrest, from the cycles of the French Revolution to the campus riots of the 1960s.

Featured

Obama Has Just Begun

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, November 24, 2015

How much damage can he do in his last year in office?

Analysis and Commentary

Politics And What Remains Of The English Language

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Monday, November 23, 2015

Here is a list of a few trendy words, overused, politicized, and empty of meaning, that now plague popular communications.

Featured

Did Bill O’Reilly Finally Go Too Far?

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Earlier this month, premier Fox newsman Bill O'Reilly became unhinged on live television. A red-faced O'Reilly loudly and repeatedly called his invited guest, Washington Post columnist and fellow conservative Fox News journalist George Will, a “hack” and accused him of lying.

Pages