Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson, an outspoken man on the issues of military and education, is all at once a classics scholar and former professor, historian, columnist, and farmer. He was born in 1953 in Fowler, California, and was raised with his two brothers on a farm in Selma. Hanson graduated with his bachelor's from University of California, Santa Cruz, and went on to take a Ph.D. in classics from Stanford in 1980. The son of a lawyer and an educator, Hanson has deep convictions both about politics and education, and he has done his part to convey those convictions through his many essays, articles, and published books. Subject matter of his works ranges from classics to war and political structure. His interest in the classics led him to create the classics program at California State University, Fresno, where he served on staff. Hanson is an advocate for reinstating classical education in American schools, which is the subject of his work Who Killed Homer? As a war historian, he derives much from classics, as well as other influences like Winston Churchill. Though not strictly a politician, Hanson is a resonating voice when it comes to war and Western civilization; his well-known work Carnage and Culture actually traces several historical battles in an analysis of dominance, freedom, democracy, and other values. Hanson is a professing Christian and a politically conservative Democrat who firmly believes in moral intregrity and that rural life is the inner support of a democracy.