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).

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Recent Commentary

Analysis and Commentary

History's Complexity Should Discourage Retroactive Morality

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Some Democratic Party groups are renouncing their once-egalitarian idols, the renaissance genius Thomas Jefferson and the populist Andrew Jackson. Both presidents, some two centuries ago, owned slaves.

Analysis and Commentary

Israeli Preemptive Action, Western Reaction

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Will Israel do the unthinkable to stop the unimaginable? The Obama administration seems peeved that almost everyone in Israel, left and right, has no use for the present Iranian–American deal to thwart Iran’s efforts to get the bomb.

Analysis and Commentary

Iran, The Munich Comparison, And The Abuse Of History

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Sunday, August 2, 2015

The Iran Deal is not Munich, but the same foolishness of Western leaders is close enough to warn us what happens next. And it will not be good.

Analysis and Commentary

America Needs A Sensible Approach To Illegal Immigration

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Can we be honest about illegal immigration? It is a common challenge to almost every advanced Western country that is adjacent to poorer nations.

Analysis and Commentary

The Obama Administration’s Chicago Politics

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, July 28, 2015

“If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” Barack Obama is the first American president from Chicago. That fact will be the trailblazing Obama’s most lasting legacy.

Analysis and Commentary

Donald Trump And The Fed-Up Crowd

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Works and Days
Sunday, July 26, 2015

Watching Trump’s rise, America’s middle class “fed-up crowd” is enjoying the comeuppance of an elite that never pays for the ramifications of its own ideology.

Related Commentary

Appeasing Iran Ignores the Lessons of History

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Thursday, July 23, 2015

The now-concluded Iran nuclear negotiations predictably reflect ancient truths of appeasement.

Blank Section (Placeholder)Analysis and Commentary

Obama’s Dangerous Rhetoric

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Defining Ideas
Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Our enemies do not believe the president’s hot air, which will only make the world a more dangerous place. 

Analysis and Commentary

The Way Of All Appeasement

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Tribune Media Services
Wednesday, July 22, 2015

The now-concluded Iran nuclear negotiations predictably reflect ancient truths of appeasement. While members of the Obama administration are high-fiving each other over a deal with the Iranian theocracy, they should remember unchanging laws that will surely haunt the U.S. later on.

Barack Obama
Analysis and Commentary

Obama And Trump: Two Of A Kind

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, July 21, 2015

President Obama is said to feel liberated, in the sense that he can finally say what, and do as, he pleases — without much worry any more over political ramifications, including presidential and congressional elections.

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