Victor Davis Hanson

• 1. A Farm Boy's Classical Thesis

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  Victor Davis Hanson was born on the 5th of September 1953 in Selma, California. He grew up working the family orchard and vineyard that had been in his relatives since the 1870s. This rural upbringing shaped his entire academic career before he ever entered a university classroom. His father's cousin shared his name and died during the Battle of Okinawa. That loss haunted the young Hanson as he later studied ancient warfare.

  Hanson earned his bachelor degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1975. He then completed his PhD at Stanford University by 1980. His doctoral thesis became the book Warfare and Agriculture published in 1983. The work argued that Greek warfare could not be understood without agrarian life. It challenged the modern assumption that agriculture suffered greatly during classical wars.

  Donald Kagan, a lecturer at Yale University, called Hanson's work on small family farmers the most important study in Greek history within his lifetime. Kagan stated its significance was hard to exaggerate. Hanson worked full-time as an orchard grower between 1980 and 1984. He joined California State University, Fresno in 1984 to launch a classical studies program there.

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• 2. The Western Way Of War

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  Hanson published The Western Way of War through Alfred Knopf in 1989. The book explored how ancient Greek combatants experienced battle. It detailed Hellenic foundations for later Western military practice. Hanson argued that ancient Greek city-states created a tradition of citizen soldiers. This tradition made Europeans and countries settled by Europeans the deadliest soldiers in history.

  His next major work appeared in 1995 under the title The Other Greeks. The Free Press published it. The book claimed a unique middling agrarian class explained the rise of the Greek city-state. Hanson linked this class to values like consensual government and sanctity of private property. He also connected them to civic militarism and individualism.

  Carnage and Culture arrived from Doubleday in 2001. Critics sometimes referred to it as Why the West Has Won when published abroad. Hanson argued Western military dominance stemmed from cultural aspects such as secular rationalism and religious tolerance. He rejected racial explanations for Western pre-eminence. His emphasis on cultural exception disagreed with environmental determinist theories found in Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel from 1997.

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• 3. From Democrat To Neoconservative

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  Hanson was once a registered member of the Democratic Party. He voted for George W. Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. By 2020 he had become a registered independent. He defended Bush policies including the Iraq War throughout his columns. Hanson described Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense as a rare sort of secretary comparable to George Marshall.

  He became known as a neoconservative due to views on the Iraq War. Hanson stated he supported neocon approaches first in wars against the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. He saw little alternative at the time. His 2002 book An Autumn of War called for going to war hard without guilt or apology until enemies were no more. The text appeared between the 11th of September 2001 and January 2002.

  In 2019 Hanson published The Case for Trump. The book defended Trump's insults and incendiary language as uncouth authenticity. Trump praised the work for its ability to troll media critics. Hanson wrote that the United States must possess moral clarity to identify evil and marshal resources to eradicate it during an era of greatest affluence.

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• 4. Columns On Race And Politics

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  Attorney General Eric Holder spoke at an NAACP meeting in July 2013. He said he needed to talk with his son about how to interact with police if stopped unwarrantedly. Hanson responded with a column titled Facing Facts about Race. He offered his own version of the Talk regarding young black men committing violent crimes statistically more often than other races.

  Arthur Stern described the column as inflammatory based upon crime statistics Hanson failed to cite. Stern argued Hanson presented controversial opinions as undeniable facts without exhaustive proof. Journalist Kelefa Sanneh noted it was strange to read Hanson writing fear of violent crime mainly as a white or Asian problem. Sanneh observed African-American parents already gave children detailed versions of such sermons.

  Hanson criticized President Barack Obama throughout his career. He blamed Obama for appeasing Iran and Russia. In May 2016 Hanson argued Obama failed to maintain credible deterrence threats. He stated those months might prove most dangerous since World War II. Hanson also claimed the administration caused the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2014.

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• 5. Academic Tenure And Think Tanks

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  Hanson served as professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He held the title Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution. The public policy think-tank appointed him chairman of its Working Group on Military History in Contemporary Conflict. He became a visiting professor at Hillsdale College later in life.

  He received the National Humanities Medal from President George W. Bush in 2007. Hanson served as a presidential appointee on the American Battle Monuments Commission during 2007 and 2008. He took early retirement from Cal State Fresno in 2004 to focus on political writing and popular history.

  His institutional roles expanded over time. Hanson was appointed Fellow in California Studies at the Claremont Institute in 2002. He served as William Simon Visiting Professor at Pepperdine University from 2009 until 2015. The graduate school there awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Laws in 2015. He joined the Bradley Foundation board in 2015 and served on the HF Guggenheim Foundation board for over a decade.

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