The Traditionalist: 20 Years Later
Victor and Jack discuss the recent disasters in US policy on the eve of 911 in Afghanistan and on the vaccination. Is the whole policy untenable?
VDH UltraHistorian’s Corner: Some Mythologies of World War II: Part Four:
One-Dimensional Versus Global War If in 1939–41, Moscow had sent Nazi Germany huge deliveries of cereals, wheat, soybeans, 100,000 tons of cotton, nearly a million tons of oil and ores and minerals essential to German industry, it would be unable to divert some of such aid to its new friends in its new fight against […]
When There Were Giants: Three Great Classicists
Victor Davis Hanson The New Criterion October 2021 Classics is not just an abstraction of values, legacies, literature, and history. Whether it comes alive or stays moribund in the modern age hinges on the success or failure of classicists in the classroom, in public fora, and in print. In that context, classics has suffered a […]
Wokeness: An Evil of Our Age
Victor Davis HansonAmerican Greatness History is replete with examples of nations, successful and not-so-successful alike, that abruptly committed suicide. The ancient polis of Corcyra devoured itself in a bloody conflict as a collective madness took hold of the island city-state during the Peloponnesian War. The Jacobins in 1793 hijacked the French Revolution and turned a […]
VDH Interviewed by Jonathan Anderson
In this Direct interview, John Anderson, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, is joined by Victor Davis Hanson. Dr. Hanson addresses Biden’s role in the Afghanistan crisis, increased tensions between China and the US, and the future of the US-Australia relationship.
What Made Them Do Their Duty?
Victor Davis Hanson City Journal Autumn 2001 From the very first moments of the World Trade Center horror, the valor and élan of New York’s firemen, together with that of the city’s police and emergency forces, have transfixed the whole nation—especially us in rural America who rarely see the real Gotham. Danger was nothing to […]
VDH UltraAngry Reader 09-12-2021
From An Angry Reader: Subject: I expect better of a supposed historian Your article criticizing the Biden administration for the failure in Afghanistan has several glaring holes in it. For one thing, your figure of $85 Billion in equipment is completely false, that was the cost to train the Afghan army over the course of […]
The Culturalist: The Death of Classics
VDH talks about the passing of three classicists this summer who humanized and popularized Classics for their students. He explores debates ancient and modern in the discipline, and, in the second half, explains Classics as a modern, culturally relevant discipline. What is being lost as our schools lose Classics?
Recall the California Ideology
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness California once was run by alternating conservatives and mostly centrist Democrats. True, paleo-liberal governors like Pat Brown greatly expanded the welfare state. But they also believed in pushing integration, building freeways, dams, aqueducts, and power plants, while preventing forest fires, directing the mentally ill into state hospitals, and ensuring […]
VDH UltraHistorian’s Corner: Some Mythologies of World War II: Part Three:
Did the Soviet Union Really “win” the war? There is something amoral in even posing such a question given the horrendous loss of Russian life resisting Nazi aggression. Superlatives are exhausted when describing the four-year-long Eastern Front between June 22, 1941 and the surrender of Nazi forces to the Soviets on May 9, 1945. While […]
Ukraine Finds Cold Comfort In White House
An article by my Hoover colleague Dr. Paul Gregory in Defining Ideas In the United States’ perennial quest for allies who share goals and contribute their fair share toward security, Ukraine is an exceptional bargain. This was perhaps the most important message that President Volodymir Zelenskiy carried with him to Washington last week in his […]
The Classicist: Our Unfit
Listen to VDH and Jack discuss the unfit governor Newsom, president Biden, and US military generals. The segment concludes with a discussion of Classics.
Classical Patricide
Much is lost in the current endeavor to kill Classics in our schools and colleges. VDH recounts the value of classics in this eulogy for the moribund discipline. Victor Davis Hanson The New Criterion September 2021 SHOULD THE FORMAL STUDY of Greece and Rome die—or be killed off? Some classicists seem to think so. An […]
VDH UltraHistorian’s Corner: Some Mythologies of World War II: Part Two:
How Did Germany Lose a War It Had Won? At the dawn of 1941, there was no expectation in Moscow that Germany would violate the tense but still very much viable August 23, 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, or that the U.S. would intervene on Britain’s side. The U.S.S.R. was eager to stay out of any second […]
The Traditionalist: Presidential Abuse of the People’s Trust
VDH and Jack discuss Biden’s coercion of Afghan president Ghani, his equally shocking boredom as the remains of soldiers arrive, passports on campus and the job market. Are we headed for a recessionary cycle?
Biden and the Left-wing Standard of Attacking the President
Victor Davis Hanson // American Greatness As Joe Biden entered office in January 2021, there still roared a left-wing revolution, a woke madness spreading through popular culture and Congress, much of which he indirectly has aided and abetted. It has redefined not just politics but the rules of the presidency. And the eventual casualty of […]
Week In Review
Get VDH’s “Week In Review” (Issue 24) It has become grim in the last few weeks in the news as you will hear and read below–and probably already know. Please excuse the hiatus in the newsletter distribution. We had and have much going on with the website. But things are smoothing out. This newsletter won’t allow […]
The Culturalist: The Praetorian Question
Listen in to Victor Davis Hanson talk about the politicization of the military in light of the Afghan debacle and the historical precedents — which, perhaps not so oddly, are those of totalitarian governments.
VDH UltraAngry Reader 09-02-2021
From An Angry Reader: Subject: Tribune Editorial Mr. Hanson: You no doubt consider yourself to be an objective journalist, but I suggest that you are little more than a shill for Donald Trump and his sycophants. Your so-called editorial, “There’s a problem in the upper reaches of our military,” is blatantly one-sided; so much so, […]
VDH UltraHistorian’s Corner: Some Mythologies of World War II: Part One:
Did Germany Win the World Wars Before It Started a New One? “World War II,” or the Anglicized “Second World War,” began formally on September 1, 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. It ended officially with the surrender of the Japanese on September 2, 1945 on the deck of the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo […]