Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers

Victor Davis Hanson: Andrew Roberts recently published this riveting new book on four leaders of the Allied front in World War II. "The Armchair Alliance" 6/28/09

The Administration

Victor Davis Hanson: It is always better to side with democrats than thugocrats. "Again, Why the Diffidence?" 6/27/09

Political Reflection

Victor Davis Hanson: Patterns seem to emerge as we look back at Obama's first six months. "What Do These First Six Months Mean?" 6/25/09

Political Satire

Victor Davis Hanson: It's all in the way you look a things. How should we understand post-campaign-rhetoric Obama? "Recollections on a New Age Begun" 6/25/09

Insurrection

Victor Davis Hanson: Wasn't Obama going to be the moral administration? His response to Iran's crisis seems like the same old story, with Bush the only exception. "Thoughts on America and Iran" 6/24/09

The Administration

Victor Davis Hanson: Ten issues reveal the twisted Obama logic. "Obamaworld" 6/22/09

Iran

Victor Davis Hanson: What should America be doing now with Iranians openly in revolt? "Reflections on the Iranian Enigma" 6/22/09

Week June 15-21, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Voting Present on Iran" 6/21/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "Words Matter in the War on Terror" 6/21/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama's New Liberal Realism" 6/20/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "Criticism and Conciliation" 6/20/09

Raymond Ibrahim:"Are Judaism and Christianity as Violent as Islam?" 6/19/09

Victor Davis Hanson:"Just Make Stuff Up" 6/19/09

Frank DeRose: "Why I Oppose Sotomayor" 6/18/09

Bruce S. Thornton: "Dupes" 6/16/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The World Turned Upside Down" 6/15/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Our Historically Challenged President" 6/15/09

Week June 8-14, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "David Letterman, Rev. Wright and Thoughts on a Creepy Culture" 6/14/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "I No Longer Quite Believe..." 6/11/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "Respecting the Faithful vs. Respecting the Faith" 6/9/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Diversity Mess" 6/8/09

Week June 1-7, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Reckoning" 6/7/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "The History Channel's Distortion of the Crusades" 6/6/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Age of Middle East Atonement" 6/6/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Who's To Judge" 6/5/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "America's First Postmodern Presidency" 6/5/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Sotomayor Nomination" 6/4/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Muslim World Address" 6/3/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Reflections on an Age Now Fading..." 6/3/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Bush Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder" 6/1/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Israel's Cuban Missile Crisis - All the Time" 6/1/09

Week May 25-31, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Lost in the Labyrinth of Race" 5/31/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Wandering Around Europe" 5/31/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "California on the Horizon" 5/28/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Euroamericans?" 5/28/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Ministers of Truth" 5/27/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Hope and Change's Shelf Life" 5/27/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Is America Postmodern or Premodern?" 5/26/09

Week May 18-24, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Amnesiactics" 5/22/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Ways of the Left" 5/22/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Once Upon a Time in 2002" 5/20/09

Week May 10-17, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "John Ford and the Republicans" 5/17/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Cheney Agonistes" 5/17/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "President Palin's First 100 Days" 5/15/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Cracks in the Facade" 5/14/09

Jamie Glazov: "Obama's Foreign Policy Disasters" 5/13/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Americans Want It Both Ways" 5/11/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Illegal Immigration Realities" 5/11/09

Week May 4-10, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Questions from Oceania" 5/10/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Why Did Republicans Lose Their Appeal?" 5/8/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Nothing New Under the Sun" 5/6/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. President" 5/4/09

April 27- May 3, 2009

Raymond Ibrahim: "Obama's Abominable Obeisance" 5/2/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Confessions of a Contrarian" 5/1/09

Bruce S. Thornton: "The Obama Administration and the Monopoly on Education" 4/29/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obamatopia" 4/29/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Crazy Times - Crazier Ones to Come" 4/27/09

Week April 20-26, 2009

Bruce S. Thornton: "The World Likes Us, It Really Like Us!" 4/25/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "One Tour Too Many" 4/24/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "Textbook Lies About Islam" 4/24/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Can We Get Beyond Race?" 4/22/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Our New Sort of War" 4/20/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Piratical Thoughts" 4/20/09

Week April 13-19, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "President of the World" 4/17/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Wisdom of Crowds" 4/15/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "President 50/50" 4/15/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Politics of Blame" 4/14/09

Week April 6-12, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Postnational, Post-modern, Post-everything Presidential Trip" 4/12/09

Bruce Thornton: "Another Times Blowhard" 4/10/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Presidential First Stone" 4/10/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "G-20 Outtakes" 4/8/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Europe Got Obama - Now What?" 4/6/09

Week March 30-April 5, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "President Obama's First 70 Days" 4/4/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Good - Part III" 4/1/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "American Mob Rule" 3/30/09

Week March 23-29, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Ugly - Part Two" 3/28/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - Part One" 3/25/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Dr. Obama: First, Do No Harm" 3/24/09

Week March 16-22, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Thoughts About Depressed Americans" 3/22/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The 'Depression' for Us Idiots" 3/21/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Bush Did It" 3/20/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Can't We All Agree" 3/20/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "Jihad, Martyrdom and the Torments of the Grave" 3/19/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Yes, We Can If They Did It and We Are Liked Now" 3/18/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Now Obama Tells Us" 3/16/09

Week March 9-15, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Oh, the Debts We Will See" 3/15/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Europeanizing Europe" 3/14/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Fast and Thick in the Age of Obama" 3/13/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Frum vs. Limbaugh" 3/12/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Accounting for California's Suicide" 3/9/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Recessional" 3/9/09

Week March 2-8, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obamafusion" 3/8/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "Taqiyya Revisited" 3/8/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Great Divider?" 3/6/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Triumph of Banality" 3/4/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "More on Rush" 3/4/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Enough Already" 3/2/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Funny Sort of Depression" 3/2/09

Week February 23-March 1, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Perverse Thoughts about a Perverse Recession" 2/28/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "War and Peace - and Deceit - in Islam" 2/27/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Some Reflections in the Times of Hysteria" 2/27/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Irony of Audacity" 2/26/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "An 'Impulsive' America" 2/23/09

Week February 16-22, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Our Battered American" 2/22/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Pause and Take a Deep Breath" 2/20/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Ancient Wisdom" 2/19/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "Consider the Source" 2/16/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Hardly the Best and Brightest" 2/16/09

Week February 9-15, 2009

Bruce Thornton: "Foreign Policy and Magical Thinking" 2/14/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "More on the New Horizon" 2/13/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Been There, Done That" 2/11/09

Week February 2-8, 2009

Bruce S. Thornton: "Unwarranted Self-Abasement" 2/8/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Apocalyptic Style" 2/8/09

Bruce S. Thornton: "Suicidal Appeasement" 2/6/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Hope He Can Change" 2/6/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "President Hamlet" 2/4/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "It Isn't Easy Being a Saint" 2/4/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Time to Beam Down to Earth" 2/2/09

Week January 26-February 1

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Obama Interview" 2/1/09

Honora Chapman: "Optimism and Defiance" 1/30/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Phony War" 1/30/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Dancing Around Landmines" 1/28/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Unreal Expectations?" 1/26/09

Week January 19-25, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Don't Waste a Crisis" 1/25/09

Bruce Thornton: "Israel's Fight for Survival" 1/23/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "An Uneasy Feeling" 1/22/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Bush Considered" 1/20/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama: The Great American Hope" 1/20/09

Week January 12-18, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Novus Ordo Seclorum" 1/18/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama: the Great American Hope" 1/17/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "From Gaza to Guantanamo" 1/14/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "Try a Little Honesty in 2009" 1/12/09

Week, January 5-11, 2009

Raymond Ibrahim: "Carl Brockelmann" 1/10/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "At New Animal Farm" 1/9/09

Raymond Ibrahim: "On Vikings and Victims" 1/9/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Media Morality Tale" 1/7/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Lose-Lose World" 1/6/09

Victor Davis Hanson "The Gaza Rules" 1/5/09

Week December 29-January 4, 2009

Victor Davis Hanson: "Surreal Gaza" 1/2/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Year Like None Other" 1/1/09

Victor Davis Hanson: "2008 Teeter Totter" 12/29/08

Terry Scambray: "Obstructed View" 12/29/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Are Slave-girls in Islam Equivalent to Animals?" 12/29/08

Week December 22-28, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "More California Dreaming" 12/28/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "For the People?" 12/27/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Desperately Seeking Caroline" 12/23/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Campaign Rhetoric and Presidential Reality" 12/22/08

Week December 15-21, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "That Was Then, This Is Now" 12/21/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "California Declares a Fiscal Crisis! You Think?" 12/21/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Blame Bush, Obama - or Us?" 12/16/08

Terry Scambray: "The Defense of Thugs" 12/16/08

Week December 8-14, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "No Monopoly on Moral Paralysis" 12/14/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Blagotrocious" 12/12/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Humanities Move Off Campus" 12/10/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Back to the Old 9/11 World" 12/8/08

Week December 1-7, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Political Madness - Some Hotspots" 12/07/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Parallel Lives" 12/06/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Hysterical Style" 12/01/08

Week November 24-30, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson:"Some Thanksgiving" 11/30/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Bush Through the Obama Prism" 11/30/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Time Warp" 11/27/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Ten Random, Politically-Incorrect Thoughts" 11/26/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "What Went Wrong?" 11/25/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Failure Is Not an Option" 11/24/08

Week November 17-23, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Is It All That Bad?" 11/22/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Campaign Rhetoric, Election Realities" 11/21/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Same Old Change" 11/17/08

Week November 11-17, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Which Way Will Obama Go?" 11/16/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Upside Down World" 11/14/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Win One for the Messiah!" 11/12/08

Mark Arvanigian: "Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and the Obama Phenomenon" 11/11/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Make Haste Slowly, President Obama?" 11/10/08

Week November 4-10, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson:"The Day After" 11/08/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Be Careful What You Wish For" 11/07/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "A Blank Slate" 11/04/08

Karen Lugo: "Obama Will Use the Courts to Spread the Wealth" 11/04/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "America Compared to What" 11/04/08

Week October 27-November 2, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "The End of Journalism" 11/01/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Al Qaeda and the Election" 10/31/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Campaign Takes a Very Strange Turn" 10/31/08

Linda Halderman: "Obamacare: A Case of Medical Misdiagnosis" 10/29/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "The Obama Enigma" 10/28/08

Week October 20-26, 2008

Raymond Ibrahim: "The Coptic Conundrum" 10/26/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "An Instructive Candidacy" 10/25/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Obama and Friends" 10/23/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "It's the Debt, Stupid" 10/20/08

Week October 13-19, 2008

Raymond Ibrahim: "Islam and Innocence" 10/19/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Jumping Ship" 10/17/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "The Hammer" 10/16/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Hope and Despair" 10/15/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Wall Street 101" 10/13/08

Week October 6-12, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Not Over Yet" 10/11/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "What Is Wisdom?" 10/10/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Osama bin Laden: Man of Love?" 10/08/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Iraq, Round Three" 10/07/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "America's Nervous Breakdown - and The World's" 10/06/08

Week September 22-28, 2008

Raymond Ibrahim: "What Al Qaeda Wants" 9/22/08

Week September 15-21, 2008

Bruce S. Thornton: "No We Can't" 9/17/08

Week: August 18-24, 2008

Victor Davis Hanson: "Angry Reader: Germany is better, VDH" 8/22/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Today in History" 8/19/07

Week August 11-17, 2008

Joseph Tartakovsky: "Man of a Thousand Faces" 8/17/08

Sen. Sam Aanestad: "More Uninsured, Please" 8/17/08

Bruce Thornton: "Islam Without Apologetics" 8/14/08

Week August 4-10, 2008

Bruce Thornton: "Obama's Race Card" 8/07/08

Victor Davis Hanson: "Angry Reader" 8/06/08

Week July 28-August 3, 2008

Chapter 1: 'Chapter 1" 7/30/08

Chapter 2: "Chapter 2" 7/30/08

Chapter 3: "Chapter 3" 7/30/08

Week July 21-27, 2008

Raymond Ibrahim: "Al-Jazeera and History" 7/22/08

Week July 14-20, 2008

Honora Howell Chapman: "Sensible Solutions" 7/17/08

Raymond Ibrahim: "Excusing Taqiyya?" 7/14/08

Week July 7-13, 2008

Raymond Ibrahim: "Land Dispute or Jihad?" (7/10/08)

Honora Howell Chapman: "Who Killed Homer? Ten Years Later" (7/8/08)

Bruce S. Thornton: "Religion and the Age" (7/8/08)

June 24, 2008
The Politics of Predicting
The left has authored more atrocities than the right.
by Terry Scambray
Private Papers

A version of this essay was published in The Fresno Bee, May 31, 2008.

Phillip Jenkins, respected historian at Penn State University, writes in The Los Angeles Times that there “is a sound basis in American political history” for predicting that the election of a Democratic president will cause “assassinations and bombings” by right wingers.

More "The Politics of Predicting"

June 20, 2008
Would a Jihadi by Any Other Name Smell as Foul?
by Raymond Ibrahim
The American Thinker

The terminology we use to describe our enemy in the war on terror matters a lot. A spirited debate is underway among specialists and in the press.

An op-ed published in the New York Times entitled "What do you call a Terror(Jihad)ist?", by P.W. Singer and Elina Noor, attempts to defend the recent State Department memo advising government personnel to refrain from using theologically-laden terms — "jihadi," "mujahidin," "caliphate," "Islamo-fascism," "salafi," "wahhabi," "ummah" — when describing Islamic radicals and their motives. Instead, generics — "terrorists," "extremists" — should suffice.

More "Would a Jihadi by Any Other Name Smell as Foul?"

Books & Things

July 2, 2008
Gathering Storm
by Bruce S. Thornton
National Review Magazine

A review of Andrew C. McCarthy, Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, Encounter Books, 2008.

Eight years before the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Islamic jihadists sent America a wake-up call that most of us slept through.

More "Gathering Storm"

June 26, 2008
Islam's History of Anti-Semitism
by Raymond Ibrahim
Washington Times

Is there such a thing as Islamic anti-Semitism? That is the implicit question that Andrew Bostom's new book, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, tackles.

More "Islam's History of Antisemitism"

June 12, 2008
Clarity, Courage and Culture
Few defend the West like Somali-born Hirsi Ali.
by Bruce S. Thornton
The New Individualist

A review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel (The Free Press, 2007, pp. 353).

Our most dangerous weakness in the war against Islamic terror is the failure of cultural nerve afflicting many Westerners.

More "Clarity, Courage and Culture"

June 3, 2008
Plan for a Century
by Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Magazine

Review of Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-first Century, by Philip Bobbitt (Knopf, 2008, 688 pp.)

Anyone who finished Philip Bobbitt’s massive, 900-page-plus The Shield of Achilles (2002) might not be surprised about the size and organization of its sequel, Terror and Consent — a 600-page-plus volume replete with book parts, chapters within chapters, Roman-numeraled subsections, bullet-marked sub-subsections, a conclusion, and a coda, all fortified with lengthy indented quotations, footnotes, and italicized passages.

More "Plan for a Century"

May 3, 2008
Darwin & Co., Ltd.
Just how limited?
by Terry Scambray
Private Papers

A review of Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism. (The Free Press, 2007) which appeared in the Fall 2007 edition of Faith & Reason.

“Buy low and sell high,” is the proverbial path to wealth. But have you ever thought of an opposite pathway? “Buy high; sell low — Make it up on volume!”

More "Darwin & Co., Ltd."

April 26, 2008
The Will to Reason
Can we expect rational man from tribal society?
by Bruce Thornton
The New Individualist

A review of Lee Harris, The Suicide of Reason. Radical Islam’s Threat to the West (New York: Basic Books, 2007)

Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War, “If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

More "The Will to Reason"

March 27, 2008
Radical Thoughts
Dr. Tawfik Hamid reveals life as an Islamicist.
by Raymond R. Ibrahim
Private Papers

This review of Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam by Dr. Tawfik Hamid (Top Executive Media, 2006) was originally published at ASMEA as “An Insider’s Thoughts on Radical Islam.”

Several singular reasons make Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam by Dr. Tawfik Hamid a welcome contribution to the otherwise growing lore on radical Islam.

More "Radical Thoughts"

February 21, 2008
The Alchemist
Brother Tariq can’t turn his Muslim to Western.
by Bruce S. Thornton
Private Papers

A review of Brother Tariq. The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan, by Caroline Fourest, trans. by Joana Wieder and John Atherton (Encounter Books, 2008)

The moderate Muslim leader is the theologico-political philosopher’s stone that many in the West believe can reconcile Islam with modernity and thus transmute disaffected Muslims, ripe for jihadist recruitment, into tolerant liberal democrats.

More "The Alchemist"

January 29, 2008
Twilight of the Nation-State
European transnationalism is a utopian dream, Pierre Manent warns.
Bruce S. Thornton
City Journal

A review of Democracy Without Nations? The Fate of Self-Government in Europe by Pierre Manent, translated by Paul Seaton (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 130 pp.)

The European Union’s grand project rests on the belief that nationalism is passé, indeed pernicious.

More "Twilight of the Nation-State"

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Calendar of Speaking Events

May 2, 2009 Fresno, CA

Location: Fresno Pacific College
Event: Sunbird Conservatives First Annual Conference
Time: 8:00-4:15PM
Bruce Thornton @ 12:00PM
Victor Hanson @ 3:00PM
Contact: prestonlittle@hotmail.com
Info: Agenda Attached

Carnage and Culture

Wars of the Ancient Greeks

The Western Way of War