History is too important to be left to academia, especially in an age of crumbling institutional trust.

On a recent episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” Hanson spoke about the remarkable collection of talent pooling at the Hoover Institution, a think tank in California that he’s been a part of for over two decades.

Hanson said Hoover has gathered a “history group better than any history department in the United States, even though we’re not an academic institution.”

He then listed a handful of historians now affiliated with the institution, including Stephen Kotkin, the great scholar of Soviet history and biographer of Josef Stalin; Barry Strauss, who has written a series of remarkable books on ancient Rome; and Andrew Roberts, who writes on a wide variety of topics from World War II to Napoleon.

“They’re all top-ranked historians,” Hanson said. “And it’s really, it hasn’t been written about. I hope some journalists will take notice.”

I took notice.

“So, it’s a very exciting time,” Hanson continued. “You can see what’s happening because I’ll have students that are at Stanford University come over and talk to me and say, ‘Wow, all the famous historians on the Stanford campus are not in the history department. They’re all at the Hoover Institution.’ And that’s very controversial. But it’s a referendum on our commitment to fill a vacuum in history in the United States.”

Hanson is entirely correct. There is a significant need for a larger societal understanding of history. Civics knowledge remains depressingly low. Unfortunately, the institutions that were once trusted to pass on the Western tradition have been largely derelict or have been corrupted. When literal mobs were targeting American statues and history for destruction, their most esteemed members were often missing in action out of fear of being canceled.

There were few professors in a more secure position during Peak Woke than Jill Lepore. The fact that she didn’t have courage to speak up both reflects very badly on her and belies the claims of those who still claim that cancel culture was not a thing during that time. https://t.co/B8hdhmqBlh

— jeremysenderowicz (@senderowiczj) November 18, 2025

Other “historians” cheered on the mob.

Some of the worst excesses of the “Great Awokening” were committed by academics on social media posting “historian here” and proceeding to deliver a smug and ideologically distorted lecture grounded in their assumed institutional prestige.

They convinced few who weren’t already in agreement and burned their credibility in the process.

Even in cases where political bias isn’t quite so obvious, many history departments focus on incredibly obscure micro social history that appeals to few people outside the ivory tower.

So, higher education, especially in the humanities, has become either so narrow in scope as to become nearly meaningless or, in a worse sense, an ideologically uniform credentialing racket. This reality is setting in at the exact moment when social media and artificial intelligence are concurrently exploding. There’s a good reason why, according to Gallup, the “importance of college” has hit an all-time low this past year.

On one hand, once venerated institutions aren’t trusted or are rejected outright. In many cases, that’s for a good reason. But on the other hand, there is a growing industry of half-baked, often AI-generated “history” of dubious quality and accuracy.  

The historians at Hoover that Hanson references have succeeded precisely because they focus on the “grand tradition of narrative history,” as he called it.

Frank Dikötter’s books on China may occasionally be voluminous, but they focus on broad topics, like the Cultural Revolution, or the Great Famine, or Mao Zedong’s cult of personality. His lectures help one understand an issue of grave importance to every American: the rise and character of Communist China.

Roberts’ books on World War II help one understand the origin and implication of the greatest conflict in world history. Even 75 years later, we live in the shadow of that war.

Strauss’ book on the death of Caesar is the best I’ve read on one of the most important moments in world history. In our own era of increasing political violence, is it the assassin who sets things right or does he propel a nation on a long-term path to inescapable tyranny?

These aren’t mere academic topics and questions. Their work relates directly to the problems facing the unsettled, increasingly dangerous world that we live in. They provide a foundation whereby citizens of a republic can make informed decisions about the future of their country without falling into the political fads of the day that were the inhuman disasters of yesterday.

Alternate institutions outside academia, such as the Hoover Institution, are picking up the pieces left behind by our failing system of higher education. They will have to succeed if we are to have any chance of saving Western civilization from itself.

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