What has your trip to campus this year looked like?
“I’ve never been more hurried. I will be here for 14 days, and I teach a three-and-a-half hour class on World War II four days a week. Yesterday I met with the Alexander Hamilton Society. And then I have to write about 3,000 words a week. I do two columns. I think I’ve done four or five Fox appearances. I go on tonight with Tucker. My wife says that these two weeks are the most jam-packed of my whole year. I don’t think I’ve slept more than four or five hours every night.
Is there a topic that you most like writing about or a favorite book that you’ve written?
I wrote a book in 2005. I wanted to know whether individual major battles, or even battles we don’t know about, changed art, literature, culture, or civilization. I picked the Battle of Delium and then I went to the Battle of Shiloh. I call the book “Ripples of Battle.” That was the most fun book I wrote.
Can you walk me through a day in the life of Victor Davis Hanson?
“If I’m home, I get up at about five o’clock and then I try to read the day’s news from say five to seven. My wife and I have to walk our dogs about a mile and a half around our almond orchard. We have 45 acres of almond trees. I do two to three interviews like we’re doing, and then in the afternoon, I try to spend about two to three hours writing, and I try to write an essay or a book review every other week. Each month I’m doing about 14 essays. I’ve been averaging about three television appearances a week with either Fox News or Newsmax. And then in the evening, I’m usually working on a book for three or four hours, so I don’t get a lot of sleep. And I’m 68 now, so what I just talked about is not sustainable. I probably do 40 or 50 public lectures a year minimum. That’s a lot of work, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. I also do three hours of podcasts. So it’s a pretty busy day.
You mentioned that your current lifestyle is “unsustainable,” is there anything you see yourself cutting back on in the next couple of years?
I have two children who are grown and my wife and I talk about what I should do to see more of my grandchildren. One of the things that I think I’m going to do is that I think this book will be the last one, because at 69 or 70, I’ve said pretty much all I want to say, and I think this year is the last year I’m going to speak. I’m going to try to cut speaking out, and probably cut book writing out. I’m a tenured, senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and I could stay there, but I don’t think I would be as effective, so I only have a couple more years.”