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-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). His forthcoming book entitled, The Second World Wars, will be out in Fall 2017 (Basic Books). 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

McMaster And Mattis Are Rare Assets—Not Deep State Liabilities

by Victor Davis Hansonvia American Greatness
Saturday, August 5, 2017

There is a larger context concerning the recent controversies among the architects of Trump’s national security team and agenda, and the criticism of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. Recall first that the foreign policy of Barack Obama, Ben Rhodes, Susan Rice, and Hillary Clinton could be best termed “provocative appeasement,” and it logically led to the present tensions around the world.

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Is Kim Jong-Un An Evil Buffoon Or An Evil Genius?

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Friday, August 4, 2017

Kim Jong-un has accomplished something that neither his grandfather nor father pulled off during the last 70 years: bringing an existential threat to the shores of the United States. North Korea’s handful of missiles that are soon to be pointed our way will be seen as posing a greater existential threat than do the far more numerous nuclear-tipped missiles of Russia and China — on the premise that by feigning (?) madness Kim is far more likely to use them.

Analysis and Commentary

The Problem Of Competitive Victimhood

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Thursday, August 3, 2017

Divisive identity politics are fading in favor of a shared American identity.

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Miracle At Dunkirk

by Victor Davis Hansonvia Defining Ideas
Wednesday, August 2, 2017

A moving film, yet one which fails to capture what was truly at stake. 

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Trump — And the Use And Abuse Of Madness

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Fiery and unpredictable rhetoric can be a powerful strategic tool, but only if it’s not habitual.

Analysis and Commentary

Trump's Circular Firing Squad

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Thursday, July 27, 2017

The American political system has never quite seen anything like the current opposition to President Trump and his unusual reaction to it.

Featured

Why Is Everyone Suddenly Quoting Thucydides?

by Victor Davis Hansonvia American Greatness
Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Currently, the historian Thucydides is the object of debate among those within the Trump Administration and its critics, who, like scholars of the last three millennia, focus on lots of differing Thucydidean personas.

White House at night
Analysis and Commentary

Sessions, P.S.

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Donald Trump’s core support is found among those who want existing immigration laws enforced, an end to state-rights nullification of federal law, and no more legal adventurism that seeks to create new laws ex nihilo. Sessions, in these regards, has been excellent. 

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Trashing Jeff Sessions — Enough Already

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, July 25, 2017

President Trump has made the point for the nth time that the recusal of Jeff Sessions on matters of alleged Russian collusion invariably led to a series of events that culminated in the appointment of Robert Mueller, a prior associate of James Comey’s, to investigate Trump with a veritable blank check and a cadre of mostly liberal attorneys, fueled by a hysterical media ready to make them all Watergate-like folk heroes if they come to Beltway-correct conclusions.

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The Korean Games Of Thrones

by Victor Davis Hansonvia National Review
Tuesday, July 25, 2017

The time for pious American lectures is over.

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