Victor Davis Hanson
Photo courtesy of Encounter Books

Described by Publisher's Weekly as the potential heir to Stephen Ambrose as "America's laureate of military history," Victor Davis Hanson was born in 1953 in Selma, California. He received his Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University and has been a professor at California State University, Fresno since 1985, where he initiated its Classics Program. He has written extensively on ancient Greek military history and modern warfare. His books include The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny (1999), The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece (2000), Carnage and Culture, Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (2001), An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism (2002), and Ripples of Battle: How Wars of the Past Still Determine How We Fight, How we Live, and How We Think (2003). He has written for the Claremont Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Weekly Standard, and writes regular columns for the National Review Online. During the 2002-2003 academic year, Hanson served as Visiting Professor of Military History at the United States Naval Academy.

What, then, is the soul of battle? A rare thing indeed that arises only when free men march unabashedly toward the heartland of their enemy in hopes of saving the doomed, when their vast armies are aimed at salvation and liberation, not conquest and enslavement.

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