The aftermath of U.S. bombs in Neak Luong, Cambodia, on Aug. 7, 1973.

Kissinger's Bombings Likely Killed Hundreds of Thousands of Cambodians and Set Path for Khmer Rouge

A Cambodian scholar who fled the Khmer Rouge as a child writes about the legacy of Henry Kissinger, who died at the age of 100 on Nov 28, 2023.
Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies

In a demonstration of why he was able to kill so many people and get away with it, the day of his passage will be a solemn one in Congress and newsrooms.
U.S. President Truman smiles next to the President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann

A Brief History of the US-Israel 'Special Relationship'

A historian of the Middle East examines how connections have shifted since long before the 1948 founding of the Jewish state.
Henry Kissinger, 1975.

Henry Kissinger: The Declassified Obituary

The primary sources on Kissinger’s controversial legacy.

Was Peace Ever Possible?

Thirty years ago, a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seemed achievable. How did it all fall apart?
Jacob Schiff.

Jewish Leaders a Century Ago Had Complicated Feelings About Israel

Fierce disagreements over Zionism have played out from the movement’s inception among Jews, including community leaders who worried it would spark antisemitism.
Anwar El-Sadat, Jimmy Carter, and Menachem Begin after the Camp David Accords.
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Jimmy Carter and the Israel-Hamas War

How America's failures in the Palestinian-Israeli crisis of the 1970s hurt U.S. security and contributed to the current war.
Rubble in the aftermath of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Big Six v. Little Boy: The Unnecessary Bomb

A new book's insistence that the bomb was necessary to bring about Japan’s surrender is largely contradicted by its own evidence.
Tank on the street of Santiago, Chile.

How Pinochet's Chile Became a Laboratory for Neoliberalism

The Chicago Boys and the tragedy of the Chilean coup.
US Marines marching in Da Nang, Vietnam, 1965.

How Israel Is Borrowing From the US Playbook in Vietnam

Justifying civilian casualties has a long history.
From left: snow, three men, and several vehicles with large tires.

The U.S. Army Tried to Build a Secret Nuclear City under Greenland’s Ice

Long before Greenland’s shifting ice threatened sea level rise, it doomed one of the military’s most audacious Cold War projects.
Cover of book Seeing Red.

The State of Nature

From Jefferson's viewpoint, Native peoples could claim a title to their homelands, but they did not own that land as private property.
Enslaved people working on South Carolina Plantation.

A Historian Complicates the Racial Divide

"African Founders" corrects some of the ideological uses of Black American history.
Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa and Chuck D.
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Hip-Hop's Black Caribbean Roots

The relationship between the DJ and his MC derived from a Jamaican “toasting” tradition and its related “sound clash” culture.
Drawing of Patrice Lumumba with Congolese people in the background.

The Real Story Behind Patrice Lumumba’s Assassination

A new book sorts through the fate of the leader of the fight for Congolese independence.
Shrapnel damage to an exterior of a home in Rehovot near Tel Aviv, Israel.
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The Problem With America's Reagan-Era Approach to Terrorism

While condemning terrorism should be a no-brainer, "moral clarity" has not guaranteed sound U.S. counterterrorism policy.
Member of Hamas holding a flag and an automatic rifle.

How George W. Bush Helped Hamas Come to Power

In Bush’s naïveté about the magic of elections, he ignored a crucial point about democracy.
Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, hands bound, sits in the bed of an army truck under guard of Congolese soldiers on Dec. 2, 1960, one day after his arrest by troops loyal to Col. Joseph Mobutu.

Open the Congo Files and Face Up to What the CIA Did

When Congo gained independence during the Cold War, secret U.S. actions undermined its young democracy. It’s time to make up for that.
Walt Rostow testifying in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C., February 1962.

The Real Washington Consensus

Modernization theory and the delusions of American strategy.
A photograph of Patrice Lamumba, superimposed on an outline of Africa and the CIA's seal.

When America Helped Assassinate an African Leader

The murder of independent Congo’s first prime minister, the subject of a new book, had lasting psychological effects on the whole continent.
Senator Joe Biden

In the ’80s, Joe Biden Speculated to Israel’s PM About Wiping Out Canadians

He expressed support for Israel's bloody invasion of Lebanon, saying the US would be similarly justified retaliating against Canadian cities for militant attacks.
Collage of Samuel Huntington, his essay "The Clash of Civilizations," and 21st-century political figure.

Samuel Huntington’s Great Idea Was Totally Wrong

His “Clash of Civilizations” essay in Foreign Affairs turned 30 this year. It was provocative, influential, manna for the modern right—and completely and utterly not true.

America Is a Root Cause of Israel and Palestine’s Latest War

How 30 years of U.S. policy ended in disaster.
Street art graffiti on the Israeli separation West Bank wall in Bethlehem features a portrait of George Floyd, symbolizing the links between Black American and Palestinian activists.

The Long, Complicated History of Black Solidarity With Palestinians and Jews

How Black support for Zionism morphed into support for Palestine.
Birthright Israel group visits the Western Wall

Hooked on a Feeling: Birthright Israel's Affective Politics

You can't be neutral on a tour bus rolling toward the foot of Masada.
John Brown.

A Plea for Genuine Peace in Liberation

To address these atrocities and treat Jewish victims, survivors, and families with dignity, we must confront Israel’s subjugation of Palestine.
Black and white picture of 7 scientists around a table. In the back, a poster of the Saturn Rocket is visible.
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The Forgotten History of Nazi Immigration to the U.S.

Canada's politicians accidentally honored a Nazi immigrant. The U.S. has frequently done the same.
Israeli artillerymen plug their ears while laying down a barrage on Syrian positions.

The Arab-Israeli War 50 Years Ago Brought Us Close to Nuclear Armageddon

As world leaders scramble to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from escalating, it is often forgotten just how close the Yom Kippur War came to all-out nuclear war.

Have We Learned Nothing?

The comparison between last weekend's Hamas attack and 9/11 is apt.
Olivier Bancoult, center, the leader of the Chagos Refugee Group, stands on Capitol Hill with Roger Alexis, a Chagossian, left, and Philip Ah-Chuen, a Mauritian advisor to the group. They met last week with lawmakers to demand reparations and an apology for the forced removal of thousands of native inhabitants from the Chagos Islands in the 1960s and 1970s to make room for a U.S. military base.

They Were Deported to Build a U.S. Naval Base. Now They Want Reparations.

50 years after native inhabitants of the Chagos Islands were forced out to make room for a military base, a Chagossian leader came to D.C. seeking reparations.