Victor Davis Hanson

Hanson grew up in Selma, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, and has worked there most of his life.{{cite web | author = Hanson, Victor Davis | editor = Heyne, Jennifer (with Thornton, Bruce S. & Chapman, Honora Howell) | date=January 25, 2013 | title = Author | format = author autobiography | work = vdh Private Papers (VictorHanson.com) | url = http://www.victorhanson.com/Author/index.html | access-date = August 8, 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130125054349/http://www.victorhanson.com/Author/index.html | archive-date = January 25, 2013}} Note, Hanson married Jennifer Heyne in November 2013.{{cn|date=February 2025}} The statement that this is an author autobiography is based on its appearance at victorhanson.com, its having been edited by his spouse, and the identity, often near verbatim, of this autobiography and others associated with Hanson (faculty, author, speaking, etc.).{{better source|date=February 2025}}{{better source|date=February 2025}}

He is of Swedish and Welsh ancestry, and his father's cousin, after whom he was named, was killed in the Battle of Okinawa.{{cite AV media | people = Robinson, Peter & Hanson, Victor Davis | date = June 12, 2023 | format = audio interview and transcript | title=A Classicist Farmer: The Life and Times of Victor Davis Hanson | url=https://www.hoover.org/research/classicist-farmer-life-and-times-victor-davis-hanson | access-date = 2025-02-12}}{{better source|date=February 2025}}{{better source|date=February 2025}}

Hanson received a B.A. in classics and general Cowell College honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1975 and his PhD in classics from Stanford University in 1980.{{better source|date=February 2025}}

{{third party | section|date=February 2025}}

Hanson notes autobiographically that he was "a full-time orchard and vineyard grower from 1980-1984, before joining the nearby CSU" (California State University, Fresno) in 1984, to launch a classical studies program there. In 1991, Hanson was awarded the American Philological Association's Excellence in Teaching Award, given annually to the nation's top undergraduate teachers of Greek and Latin. He was named distinguished alumnus of the year for 2006 at University of California, Santa Cruz.{{cite web| author = Hanson, Victor Davis | date = 2018-10-15 | title = Classical Studies Program—Faculty: Victor Davis Hanson | format = faculty autobiography | work = Fresno State, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures | location = Fresno, CA | publisher = California State University, Fresno | url=http://www.fresnostate.edu/artshum/mcll/faculty-staff/hanson.html | archive-date=October 15, 2018 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181015184140/http://www.fresnostate.edu/artshum/mcll/faculty-staff/hanson.html|url-status= dead | quote = Hanson, who was the fifth successive generation to live in the same house on his family's farm, was a full-time orchard and vineyard grower from 1980-1984, before joining the nearby CSU...}} He has been a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University in California (1991–1992) and a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–1993). He was named a Alexander Onassis Fellow (2001), and a Nimitz Fellow at University of California, Berkeley (2006),{{cn|date=February 2025}} and held the visiting Shifrin Chair of Military History at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland (2002–2003).{{Cite web | author = Hanson, Victor Davis | date = 2006 | title=2006 Speaker—Dr. Victor Davis Hanson | format = speaker autobiography | work = NROTC.Berkeley.edu |url= https://nrotc.berkeley.edu/2006-speaker-dr-victor-davis-hanson/ |access-date=2024-03-12 | location = Berkeley, CA | publisher = Berkeley Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC)}}{{better source|date=February 2025}}{{better source|date=February 2025}}

In 2004, he took early retirement to focus on his political writing and popular history.{{cite news | first = Rone | last = Tempest | title = Right Way to Farm the Classics | work = The Los Angeles Times | date = 25 February 2004 | url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-feb-25-me-hanson25-story.html | access-date = 2025-02-12}} Hanson has held a series of positions in conservative-leaning institutions and private foundations.{{cn|date=February 2025}} He was appointed Fellow in California Studies at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think-tank in California,{{cn|date=February 2025}} in 2002.{{citation needed |date=October 2023}}

Hanson was appointed as a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California, another conservative think-tank.{{when|date=February 2025}}{{citation needed |date=October 2023}} He served as a William Simon Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, a private Christian institution in California, from 2009–2015,{{citation needed |date=October 2023}} and was awarded in 2015 an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from the graduate school at Pepperdine.{{citation needed |date=October 2023}} He gave the Wriston Lecture in 2004 for the Manhattan Institute whose mission is to "develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility."{{citation needed |date=October 2023}} He became a board member of the Bradley Foundation in 2015 and served on the HF Guggenheim Foundation board for over a decade.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}

{{multiple issues | section = yes |

{{essay-like|section|date=February 2025}}

{{refimprove section|date=February 2025}}

{{original research|section|date=February 2025}}

}}

Since 2004, Hanson has written a weekly column syndicated by Tribune Content Agency,{{cite web|title=Victor Davis Hanson articles|url=https://tribunecontentagency.com/premium-content/opinion/international/victor-davis-hanson|website=Tribune Content Agency|access-date=October 9, 2018}} as well as a weekly column for National Review Online since 2001.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}} He was awarded the National Humanities Medal (2007) by President George W. Bush, as well as the Eric Breindel Prize for opinion journalism (2002), and the Bradley Prize from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in 2008.

Hanson's Warfare and Agriculture (Giardini 1983), his PhD thesis, argued that Greek warfare could not be understood apart from agrarian life in general and suggested that the modern assumption that agriculture was irrevocably harmed during classical wars was vastly overestimated. The Western Way of War (Alfred Knopf 1989) explored the combatants' experiences of ancient Greek battle and detailed the Hellenic foundations of later Western military practice.{{citation needed|date=October 2023}}

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?157856-1/the-land-everything Presentation by Hanson on The Land Was Everything, June 22, 2000], C-SPAN |video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?176827-9/mexifornia-state-becoming Interview with Hanson on Mexifornia, May 31, 2003], C-SPAN| video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?177866-1/mexifornia-state-becoming Booknotes interview with Hanson on Mexifornia, September 28, 2003], C-SPAN | video4 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?179330-1/ripples-battle Presentation by Hanson on Ripples of Battle, October 27, 2003], C-SPAN | video5 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?189156-1/a-war-other-peloponnesian-war Presentation by Hanson on A War Like No Other, September 7, 2005], C-SPAN | video6 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?190269-3/a-war-other-interview Presentation by Hanson on A War Like No Other, December 10, 2005], C-SPAN | video7 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?172403-1/an-autumn-war Presentation by Hanson on An Autumn of War, August 26, 2002], C-SPAN| video8 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?293853-1/the-father-all Presentation by Hanson on The Father of Us All, May 16, 2010], C-SPAN}}

The Other Greeks (The Free Press 1995) argued that the emergence of a unique middling agrarian class explains the ascendance of the Greek city-state and its singular values of consensual government, sanctity of private property, civic militarism, and individualism. In Fields Without Dreams (The Free Press 1996, winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award) and The Land Was Everything (The Free Press 2000, a Los Angeles Times notable book of the year), Hanson lamented the decline of family farming and rural communities and the loss of agrarian voices in American democracy. The Soul of Battle (The Free Press 1999) traced the careers of Epaminondas, the Theban liberator, William Tecumseh Sherman, and George S. Patton in arguing that democratic warfare's strengths are best illustrated in short, intense, and spirited marches to promote consensual rule but bog down otherwise during long occupations or more conventional static battle.

In Mexifornia (Encounter 2003), a personal memoir about growing up in rural California and an account of immigration from Mexico, Hanson predicted that illegal immigration would soon reach crisis proportions unless legal, measured, and diverse immigration was restored, as well as the traditional melting-pot values of integration, assimilation, and intermarriage.{{Cite news|title=Commentary: 'Mexifornia' is a Tragedy in the Making|last=Hanson|first=Victor Davis|date=29 June 2003|work=Los Angeles Times|id={{ProQuest|}}}}

Ripples of Battle (Doubleday 2003) chronicled how the cauldron of battle affects combatants' later literary and artistic work, as its larger influence ripples for generations, affecting art, literature, culture, and government. In A War Like No Other (Random House 2005, a New York Times notable book of the year), a history of the Peloponnesian War, Hanson offered an alternative history, arranged by methods of fighting (triremes, hoplites, cavalry, sieges, etc.) in concluding that the conflict marked a brutal watershed event for the Greek city-states. The Savior Generals (Bloomsbury 2013) followed the careers of five great generals (Themistocles, Belisarius, Sherman, Ridgway, Petraeus) and argued that rare qualities in leadership emerge during hopeless predicaments that only rare individuals can salvage.{{Cite journal|date=March 15, 2013|title=The Savior Generals|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/victor-davis-hanson/the-savior-generals/|journal=Kirkus Reviews|isbn=978-1-60819-163-5|last1=Hanson|first1=Victor Davis}}

The End of Sparta (Bloomsbury 2011) is a novel about a small community of Thespian farmers who join the great march of Epaminondas (369/370 BC) to the heart of the Peloponnese to destroy Spartan hegemony, free the Messenian helots, and spread democracy in the Peloponnese.

Hanson has edited several collections of essays, including (Hoplites, Routledge 1991), Bonfire of the Humanities (with B. Thornton and J. Heath, ISI 2001), and Makers of Ancient Strategy (Princeton 2010), as well as a number of his own collected articles, such as An Autumn of War [2002 Anchor], Between War and Peace [Anchor 2004], and The Father of Us All [Bloomsbury 2010]. He has written chapters for works such as the Cambridge History of War, and the Cambridge History of Ancient Warfare.

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?166237-1/carnage-culture Presentation by Hanson on Carnage and Culture, September 15, 2001], C-SPAN|}}

Hanson wrote the 2001 book Carnage and Culture (Doubleday), published in Great Britain and the Commonwealth countries as Why the West Has Won, in which he argued that the military dominance of Western civilization, beginning with the ancient Greeks, results from certain fundamental aspects of Western culture, such as consensual government, a tradition of self-critique, secular rationalism, religious tolerance, individual freedom, free expression, free markets, and individualism. Hanson's emphasis on cultural exception rejects racial explanations for Western military preeminence and disagrees with the environmental or geographical determinist explanations such as those put forth by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997).Victor Davis Hanson

[http://www.nationalreview.com/article/214502/decline-and-fall-victor-davis-hanson Decline And Fall: A review of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed], National Review Magazine, May 20, 2005{{non-primary source needed|date=October 2023}}

The American military officer Robert L. Bateman, in a 2007 article on the Media Matters for America website, criticized Hanson's thesis and argued that Hanson's point about Western armies preferring to seek out a decisive battle of annihilation is rebutted by the Second Punic War in which Roman attempts to annihilate the Carthaginians instead led to the Carthaginians annihilating the Romans at the Battle of Cannae.{{cite web | last = Bateman | first = Robert | title = Bateman on Hanson, Round 1: Cannae, 2 August 216 B.C. | publisher = Media Matters | date= October 29, 2007 | url = http://mediamatters.org/research/2007/10/29/bateman-on-hanson-round-1-cannae-2-august-216-b/141508#2 | access-date = 2016-08-24}} Bateman argued that Hanson was wrong about Western armies' common preferences in seeking out a battle of annihilation and argued that the Romans defeated the Carthaginians only via the Fabian strategy of keeping their armies in being and not engaging Hannibal in battle. In a response published on his personal website, Hanson argued that Bateman had misunderstood and misrepresented his thesis. Hanson stated that in the Second Punic War, the Romans initially sought out decisive battles but were reluctantly forced to resort to a Fabian strategy after several defeats at the hands of a tactical genius until they had rebuilt their military capacity, when they ultimately defeated Hannibal in decisive battles. He also said that since the Carthaginians themselves had adopted many "Western" methods of warfare from the Greeks, Hannibal, too, was keen to seek decisive battles.{{cite web | last = Hanson | first = Victor Davis | title = Squaring Off: Part II | publisher = Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers | date= November 5, 2007 | url = http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=5416 | access-date = 2016-08-24}}

Hanson co-authored the book Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom with John Heath in 1998. The book explores the issue of how classical education has declined in the US and what might be done to restore it to its former prominence. That is important, according to Hanson and Heath, because knowledge of classical Greece and Rome is necessary for a full understanding of Western culture. To begin a discussion along those lines, the authors state, "The answer to why the world is becoming Westernized goes all the way back to the wisdom of the Greeks—reason enough why we must not abandon the study of our heritage."Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath, Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2001), p. 28.

The political scientist Francis Fukuyama reviewed Who Killed Homer? favorably in Foreign Affairs and wrote that, "The great thinkers of the Western tradition—from Hobbes, Burke, and Hegel to Weber and Nietzsche (who was trained as a classical philologist)—were so thoroughly steeped in Greek thought that they scarcely needed to refer back to original texts for quotations. This tradition has come under fire from two camps, one postmodernist that seeks to deconstruct the classics on the grounds of gender, race, and class, and the other pragmatic and career-minded that asks what value the classics have in a computer-driven society. The authors' defense of a traditionalist approach to the classics is worthy."{{cite magazine|title=Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/1998-07-01/who-killed-homer-demise-classical-education-and-recovery-greek|magazine=Foreign Affairs}}

The classicists Victoria Cech and Joy Connolly found Who Killed Homer? to have considerable pitfalls. Reviews of the book have noted several problems with the authors' perception of classical culture. According to Cech, "One example is the relation of the individual to the state and the 'freedom' of belief or of inquiry in each. Socrates and Jesus were put to death by their respective states for articulating inconvenient doctrines. In Sparta, where the population of citizens (male) were carefully socialized in a military system, no one seems to have differed from the majority enough to merit the death penalty. But these differences are not sorted out by the authors, for their mission is to build an ideal structure of classical attitudes by which to reveal our comparative flaws, and their point is more what is wrong with us than what was right with Athens. I contend that Hanson and Heath are actually comparing modern academia not to the ancient seminal cultures but to the myth that arose about them over the last couple of millennia."{{cite web|title=Who Killed Homer?|url=http://mtprof.msun.edu/Win1999/Cech.html|publisher=The Montana Professor}} According to Connolly, Professor of Classics at New York University as of 2016,{{cite web|url=http://classics.as.nyu.edu/object/JoyConnolly.html|title=NYU Classics: Joy Connolly|access-date=September 4, 2016}} "Throughout history, the authors say, women have never enjoyed equal rights and responsibilities. At least in Greece, 'the veiled, mutilated, and secluded were not the norm' (p. 57). Why waste time, then, as feminist scholarship does, 'merely demarcating the exact nature of the sexism of the Greeks and the West' (p. 102)? From their point of view, in fact, the real legacy of feminism is the destruction of the values of family and community."{{cite journal| author = Connolly, Joy | date = 1998-05-13 | title=Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath, Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom | format = book review | journal=Bryn Mawr Classical Review | url=http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1998/98.5.13.html| access-date = 2025-02-12 }}

Hanson was at one time a registered member of the Democratic Party{{Cite web|date=2003-03-01|title=Interview with Victor Davis Hanson: 'We're Removing Saddam Hussein'|url=https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2003/march/interview-victor-davis-hanson-were-removing-saddam-hussein|access-date=2021-02-25|website=U.S. Naval Institute|language=en}} but is a conservative who voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections.[http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,NI_Interview_0303,00.html Interview], Proceedings, March 2003. As of 2020, he was a registered independent.{{Cite web|date=2020-12-03|title=Denigrating Hoover|url=https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/12/02/denigrating-hoover/|access-date=2021-02-25|website=The Stanford Daily}} He defended George W. Bush and his policies,[http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200408130813.asp On Loathing Bush – It's not about what he does], Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, August 13, 2004 {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724132535/http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200408130813.asp|date=July 24, 2008}} especially the Iraq War.[http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200408130813.asp Myth or Reality – Will Iraq work? That's up to us], Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, April 23, 2004{{Cite web |url=http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200408130813.asp |title=Victor Davis Hanson on Bush Hatred on National Review Online |website=National Review |access-date=April 7, 2009 |archive-date=July 24, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724132535/http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson200408130813.asp |url-status=bot: unknown }} He vocally supported Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, describing him as "a rare sort of secretary of the caliber of George Marshall" and a "proud and honest-speaking visionary" whose "hard work and insight are bringing us ever closer to victory."[http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson122304.html Leave Rumsfeld Be – He is not to blame for our difficulties] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120713205844/http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson122304.html|date=July 13, 2012}}, Victor Davis Hanson, National Review, December 23, 2004.

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?458156-1/after-words-victor-davis-hanson After Words interview with Hanson on The Case for Trump, March 23, 2019], C-SPAN}}

Hanson, a supporter of Donald Trump, wrote a 2019 book called The Case for Trump.{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2019/03/15/feature/other-presidents-had-a-brain-trust-but-the-intellectuals-backing-this-white-house-are-a-bust/|title=Thinking for Trump: Other presidents had a brain trust. But the intellectuals backing this White House are a bust.|last=Lozada|first=Carlos|date=2019|newspaper=The Washington Post}} Trump praised the book, in which Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics."

He has been described as a neoconservative by some commentators for his views on the Iraq War[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jan-22-na-neocons22-story.html Bush pulls neocons out of the shadows] Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2005[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7825039.stm The end of the neo-cons?] BBC News, February 9, 2009 and stated, "I came to support neocon approaches first in the wars against the Taliban and Saddam, largely because I saw little alternative."[http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson071208.html The Neocon Slur] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120213081306/http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson071208.html |date=February 13, 2012 }}, Victor Davis Hanson, July 12, 2008 Hanson's 2002 An Autumn of War called for going to war "hard, long, without guilt, apology or respite until our enemies are no more."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/05/books/critic-s-notebook-how-books-have-shaped-us-policy.html|title=Critic's Notebook; How Books Have Shaped U.S. Policy|last=Kakutani|first=Michiko|date=2003-04-05|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-03-17|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} In the context of the Iraq War, Hanson wrote, "In an era of the greatest affluence and security in the history of civilization, the real question before us remains whether the United States{{snd}}indeed any Western democracy{{snd}}still possesses the moral clarity to identify evil as evil, and then the uncontested will to marshal every available resource to fight and eradicate it."{{Cite journal|last1=Schmidt|first1=Brian C.|last2=Williams|first2=Michael C.|date=2008-05-22|title=The Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War: Neoconservatives Versus Realists|journal=Security Studies|language=en|volume=17|issue=2|pages=191–220|doi=10.1080/09636410802098990|s2cid=155073127|issn=0963-6412}}

In July 2013, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech where he mentioned that as a black man, he needed to deliver "the Talk" to his son to instruct him on how to interact with police as a young black man. In response to Holder's speech, Hanson wrote a column, "Facing Facts about Race," in which he offered his own version of "the Talk," the need to inform his children to be careful of young black men when venturing into the inner city, who Hanson argued were statistically more likely to commit violent crimes than young men of other races, and so it was understandable for the police to focus on them.{{Cite news|url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-sermon-on-race-from-national-review|title=A Sermon on Race from National Review|last=Sanneh|first=Kelefa|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2013-07-24|access-date=2019-05-18|language=en|issn=0028-792X}}{{cite magazine|title=Facing Facts About Race|magazine=National Review Online|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/article/354122/facing-facts-about-race-victor-davis-hanson|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|date=July 23, 2013}} Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic described Hanson's column as "stupid advice": "in any other context we would automatically recognize this 'talk' as stupid advice. If I were to tell you that I only employ Asian-Americans to do my taxes because 'Asian-Americans do better on the Math SAT', you would not simply question my sensitivity, but my mental faculties."{{cite magazine|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/its-the-racism-stupid/278026|title=It's the Racism, Stupid!|first=Te-Nehisi | last=Coates|date=July 23, 2013|magazine=The Atlantic}}

Arthur Stern called "Facing Facts About Race" an "inflammatory" column based upon crime statistics that Hanson had never cited: "His presentation of this controversial opinion as undeniable fact without exhaustive statistical proof is undeniably racist."{{cite web|title=A Millennial Takedown of Victor Davis Hanson's 'Facts About Race'|publisher=News.Mic|url=https://mic.com/articles/56449/a-millennial-takedown-of-victor-davis-hanson-s-facts-about-race|first=Arthur|last=Stern|date=July 25, 2013}} The journalist Kelefa Sanneh, in response to "Facing Facts About Race," wrote, "It's strange, then, to read Hanson writing as if the fear of violent crime were mainly a "white or Asian" problem, about which African-Americans might be uninformed, or unconcerned{{snd}}as if African-American parents weren't already giving their children more detailed and nuanced versions of Hanson's 'sermon', sharing his earnest and absurd hope that the right words might keep trouble at bay."{{cite magazine|title=A Sermon on Race from National Review|magazine=The New Yorker|url=http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/a-sermon-on-race-from-national-review|first=Kelefa|last=Sanneh|date=July 24, 2013}} Hanson, in response to Sanneh's essay, accused him of a "McCarthyite character assassination" and "infantile, if not racialist, logic."{{cite web|title=Untruth at the New Yorker|publisher=Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers|url=http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=6271|date=July 29, 2013}}

Hanson was a critic of President Barack Obama.{{Cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/22/meet-the-revisionist-george-w-bush-pretty-much-the-same-as-the-old-george-w-bush/|title=Meet the revisionist George W. Bush – pretty much the same as the old George W. Bush|last=Drezner|first=Daniel W.|website=Foreign Policy|date=April 22, 2013 |language=en|access-date=2019-03-17}} He criticized the Obama administration for what he saw as "appeasing" Iran{{cite web|title=Sizing America Up|publisher=Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers|url=http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=7974#more-7974|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|date=November 4, 2014}} and Russia, and blamed Obama for the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2014.{{cite web|url=http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=8720|title=The Road to Middle East Perdition|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|date=October 13, 2015|publisher=Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers}}{{cite web|url=http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=6999|title=The Value of Putin|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|date=February 11, 2014|publisher=Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers}}{{cite news|title= The New World Map|publisher= Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers|url=http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=8489|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|newspaper= VDH's Blade of Perseus|date=June 19, 2015}}{{cite web|title= Our Russia Experts |publisher =Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers|url=http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=7721|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|date=July 30, 2014}} In May 2016, Hanson argued that Obama failed to maintain a credible threat of deterrence and that "the next few months may prove the most dangerous since World War II."{{cite web|url=http://victorhanson.com/wordpress/?p=9308|title=How Barack Obama's Foreign Policy De-Stabilized the World|first=Victor Davis|last=Hanson|date=May 19, 2016|publisher=Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers}}

On June 18, 1977, Hanson married Cara Webb. They had three children— two daughters and a son. The couple divorced in 2005. In 2013, Hanson married Jennifer Heyne.{{Cite web |date=2024-06-19 |title=The Enduring Love Between Victor Davis Hanson and Cara Webb Hanson {{!}} Bravado Coffee Cafe |url=https://bravadocoffeecafe.com/cara-webb-hanson/ |access-date=2024-08-27 |language=en-GB}} In 2014, Hanson's youngest daughter, Susannah, died of leukemia.{{Cite web |last=Carter |first=Evan |date=2014-11-20 |title=Victor Davis Hanson's daughter dies |url=https://hillsdalecollegian.com/2014/11/victor-davis-hansons-daughter-dies/ |access-date=2024-08-27 |website=Hillsdale Collegian |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |date=2014-11-17 |title=Susannah Merry Hanson |url=https://hanfordsentinel.com/community/selma-kingsburg/obituaries/susannah-merry-hanson/article_cdea792d-413f-55da-8928-42fc6a38f343.html |access-date=2024-08-27 |website=Hanford Sentinel |language=en}}

Hanson's mother, sister-in-law and maternal aunt have also died of cancer.{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rel0-uC7UUM |title=Trump-RFK Alliance Terrifies Elites, and Brilliant "Make America Healthy Again" Message, with VDH |date=2024-08-26 |last=Megyn Kelly |access-date=2024-08-27 |via=YouTube}}

Hanson currently resides on a farm outside of Selma in California's Central Valley, which has been in his family since the 1870s.{{Cite web |title=A Classicist Farmer: The Life And Times Of Victor Davis Hanson |url=https://www.hoover.org/research/classicist-farmer-life-and-times-victor-davis-hanson |access-date=2024-08-27 |website=Hoover Institution |language=en}}

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?180406-1/depth-victor-davis-hanson In Depth interview with Hanson, March 7, 2004], C-SPAN| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?515783-1/depth-victor-davis-hanson In Depth interview with Hanson, December 5, 2021], C-SPAN | video3 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?312871-1/the-savior-generals Presentation by Hanson on The Savior Generals, May 14, 2013], C-SPAN | video4 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?313158-1/after-words-victor-davis-hanson After Words interview with Hanson on The Savior Generals, June 28, 2013], C-SPAN | video5 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?437392-1/the-world-wars Presentation by Hanson on The Second World Wars, November 16, 2017], C-SPAN | video6 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?515027-1/the-dying-citizen Presentation by Hanson on The Dying Citizen, October 7, 2021], C-SPAN | video7 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?519863-1/the-dying-citizen Presentation by Hanson on The Dying Citizen, May 13, 2022], C-SPAN}}

• [https://archive.org/details/warfareagricultu00hans Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece]. University of California Press, 1983. {{ISBN|0-520-21025-5}}. Rev. ed. 1998.
• [https://archive.org/details/westernwayofwari00vict The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece]. Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. 2nd. ed. 2000. {{ISBN|0-394-57188-6}}
• Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience, editor, Routledge, 1991. {{ISBN|0-415-04148-1}}
• The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization, Free Press, 1995. {{ISBN|0-02-913751-9}}
• [https://archive.org/details/fieldswithoutdre00vict Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea], Free Press, 1996. {{ISBN|0-684-82299-7}}
• Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom, with John Heath, Encounter Books, 1998. {{ISBN|1-893554-26-0}}
• [https://archive.org/details/soulofbattlefrom00hans_1 The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny], Free Press, 1999. {{ISBN|0-684-84502-4}}
• [https://archive.org/details/warsofancientgre0000hans The Wars of the Ancient Greeks: And the Invention of Western Military Culture], Cassell, 1999. {{ISBN|0-304-35222-5}}
• The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer, Free Press, 2000. {{ISBN|0-684-84501-6}}
• [https://archive.org/details/bonfireofhumanit00vict Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age], with John Heath and Bruce S. Thornton, ISI Books, 2001. {{ISBN|1-882926-54-4}}
• [https://archive.org/details/carnageculture00vict_0 Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power], Doubleday, 2001. {{ISBN|0-385-50052-1}}
• : Published in the UK as Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam, Faber, 2001. {{ISBN|0-571-20417-1}}
• An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism, Anchor Books, 2002. {{ISBN|1-4000-3113-3}} A collection of essays, mostly from National Review, covering events occurring between September 11, 2001, and January 2002
• [https://archive.org/details/mexiforniastateo00hans_0 Mexifornia: A State of Becoming], Encounter Books, 2003. {{ISBN|1-893554-73-2}}
• [https://archive.org/details/ripplesofbattle00vict Ripples of Battle: How Wars Fought Long Ago Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think], Doubleday, 2003. {{ISBN|0-385-50400-4}}
• Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq, Random House, 2004. {{ISBN|0-8129-7273-2}}. A collection of essays, mostly from National Review, covering events occurring between January 2002 and July 2003
• [https://archive.org/details/warlikenootherho00hans A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War], Random House, 2005. {{ISBN|1-4000-6095-8}}[http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/6/2006_6_24.shtml Fredric Smoler]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} "Study of the War on Terrorism: The View from 400 B.C.," American Heritage, Nov./Dec. 2006.
• [https://archive.org/details/fatherofusallwar00hans The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern], Bloomsbury Press, 2010. {{ISBN|978-1-60819-165-9}}
• The End of Sparta: A Novel, Bloomsbury Press, 2011. {{ISBN|978-1-60819-164-2}}
• [https://archive.org/details/saviorgeneralsho0000hans The Savior Generals: How Five Great Commanders Saved Wars That Were Lost – From Ancient Greece to Iraq], Bloomsbury Press, 2013. {{ISBN|978-1-6081-9163-5}}
• The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, Basic Books, 2017. {{ISBN|978-0465066988}}
• The Case for Trump, Basic Books, 2019. {{ISBN|978-1541673540}}
• The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America, Basic Books, 2021. {{ISBN|978-1541647534}}
• {{cite journal |title=Imperialism: Lessons From History |journal=Imprimis |url= https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/imperialism-lessons-from-history/|date=July–August 2023 |volume=52 |issue=7/8 |pages=1–6 |publisher=Hillsdale College |location=Hillsdale, MI |issn=0277-8432}}
• The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, Basic Books, 2024. {{ISBN|978-1541673526}}

{{reflist|30em}}

• {{cite news | first = Rone | last = Tempest | title = Right Way to Farm the Classics | work = The Los Angeles Times | date = 25 February 2004 | url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-feb-25-me-hanson25-story.html | access-date = 2025-02-12}}
• {{Cite web | author = Hanson, Victor Davis & CRB Staff | date = 12 February 2025 | title = Victor Davis Hanson | format = contributor's biographical blurb | work = Claremont Review of Books | url= https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/author/victor-davis-hanson/|quote = [Entirety of text appearing is] Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow of Classics and Military History at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• [http://victorhanson.com Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers] – Hanson's website; carries columns and essays by Hanson and colleagues
• [http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp Hanson's National Review articles] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061113190444/http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp |date=November 13, 2006 }} – archive at National Review Online
• [http://www.hoover.org/profiles/victor-davis-hanson Hoover Institution bio]
• {{C-SPAN|84577}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanson, Victor Davis}}

Category:1953 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American historians

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:21st-century American historians

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:American columnists

Category:American male essayists

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:American military historians

Category:American people of Swedish descent

Category:American people of Welsh descent

Category:American political writers

Category:American Protestants

Category:California State University, Fresno faculty

Category:American critics of postmodernism

Category:Farmers from California

Category:Hillsdale College faculty

Category:Historians from California

Category:Hoover Institution people

Category:Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

Category:National Humanities Medal recipients

Category:New Right (United States)

Category:People from Fowler, California

Category:People from Selma, California

Category:Stanford University alumni

Category:The Washington Times people

Category:Theorists on Western civilization

Category:University of California, Santa Cruz alumni

Category:Writers from California

Category:American classical scholars