Historian’s Corner

Victor Davis Hanson Here is what we do not understand about the January 6th Committee—if it truly was intended to appear as a disinterested investigatory body. 1. Why for the first time in memory did Speaker Pelosi forbid the House Minority Leader’s pro forma nominees to a special House committee? Fairly or not, the result […]

Victor Davis Hanson Country Living I have lived most of my life in the country, save for three academic years in Santa Cruz, four in Palo Alto, and two in Athens. Like many of you born outside of cities, I get restless in town—too crowded, too loud, too many strangers. I am used to being

Victor Davis Hanson As one nears 70 years old, already arrived at Solon’s ebb tide and last age of man, all the old, ingrained habits begin to become burdensome. What once was pleasurable Hesiodic “work upon work upon work” becomes a swollen knee for a week, a sore shoulder for three days, a burning muscle

Victor Davis Hanson What have the American armed forces often failed at? Democracies and consensual societies grow large bureaucracies for several reasons. And often stasis sets in, and ossified clerks and calcified careerists resent the talented outsider and the maverick, not-by-the-book loudmouth. And a result, brilliance is resented and smothered, and America is no exception

Victor Davis Hanson In sum, American war production was characterized by mass quantities, reliability, pragmatism, and affordability. What good did it do Panther tanks that they could blow apart Shermans at great distances if their hours of maintenance to hours of deployment were the inverse of Shermans? So what if the Tiger or Tiger II

Victor Davis Hanson Innovation It is no accident that the big-ticket, new weapons systems in World War II were American-made, or ironclads designed from the hull up with powerful guns, like the Monitor and its two state-of-the-art 11-inch Dahlgren turret guns, first appeared in the U.S. That is not to say friends and foes did

Victor Davis Hanson In reviewing America’s long wartime record, what does the United States do well, and what not—and what can we learn from both successes and failures? Production and Mobilization If America is often lax in maintaining deterrence during peace—cf. the disarmed era between 1870–1914 or 1920–1940—it is phenomenal at the 11th hour in

Victor Davis Hanson Soon the affluent woke went even further in their hubris. More statues were toppled, more names changed, more dangerous laws passed. Somehow in the mass madness of iconoclasm even the statues of Cervantes and Frederick Douglas were to be desecrated, along with monuments along Washington’s National Mall. The common denominator apparently was

Victor Davis Hanson Imagine this counterfactual—what if a President Donald Trump had released Viktor Bout from a U.S. prison? He is the convicted, notorious international arms dealer, who had supplied sophisticated weapons to help kill Americans abroad. And further imagine he gave up Bout in exchange for just one white, male, conservative athlete, known for

Victor Davis Hanson 3) Boarding passengers should be greeted with “Put all cell phones away until seated.” How many times, reader, have you watched someone with one hand on the phone talking, the other trying to slam a too-large carry-on into an already stuffed overhead? (Or how many times has a passenger blocked the aisle,