MLK giving his Vietnam speech

“Somehow This Madness Must Cease.”

Revisiting MLK Jr.’s sermon against the Vietnam War.
Portrait of George Washington on a horse.

Declaring War

Congress hasn't declared it often. The U.S. has fought a lot of war anyway. How?
Picture of soldiers from WWI.

There Is More War in the Classroom Than You Think

Hitchcock and Herwig discuss their findings on the teaching of war in higher education.

When the World Tried to Outlaw War

What, if anything, can we learn from the 1928 Paris Peace Pact?

The Unintended Consequences of Veterans' Day

In hindsight: A day created to commemorate peace has been transformed into one that perpetuates war.

A People’s Obituary of Henry Kissinger

For decades, Kissinger kept the great wheel of American militarism spinning ever forward.
A collage of images of Henry Ford and newspaper articles about him.

America’s Most Dangerous Anti-Jewish Propagandist

Making sense of anti-Semitism today requires examining Henry Ford’s outsize part in its origins.

Have We Learned Nothing?

The comparison between last weekend's Hamas attack and 9/11 is apt.
A 1938 poster from the Women’s Field Army of the American Society for the Control of Cancer.

Should We Abandon the Idea That Cancer Is Something To ‘Fight’?

Is the century-old battle metaphor doing more harm than good to doctors and patients alike?
A U.S. Army officer posing after a battle at the Baghdad airport, April 2003.

Blundering Into Baghdad

The right—and wrong—lessons of the Iraq War.
President Truman in the Oval Office after presenting three Korean War veterans with the Medal of Honor.

When History Becomes Precedent in the OLC

Official decisions about military intervention and executive power are often based on outdated historical interpretations.
Painting of a city surrendering to Napoleon.

Uses & Abuses of Military History

On the value of the discipline and its applications.
Illustration of Crazy Horse

How Would Crazy Horse See His Legacy?

Perhaps no Native American is more admired for military acumen than the Lakota leader. But is that how he wanted to be remembered?
Royal Fusiliers War Memorial, 2011. Photograph by Robert Scarth.

Monuments with Mission Creep

On “all wars” memorials.
Black and white image of workmen standing on or outside of a train.

Riding with Du Bois

Railroads—in the Jim Crow South just as in today’s Ukraine—employ physical infrastructure to create racial divisions.
illustration including "Napalm Girl" photo and photo of the photographer

The View from Here

Fifty years on, Nick Ut’s Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, “Napalm Girl,” still has the power to shock. But can a picture change the world?
Poster with women pledging to "pay not more than top legal prices" and "accept no rationed goods without giving up ration stamps"

Politics and the Price Level

On inflation, institutions, and the governance of the price level.
US military pilots operating Predator drones from the ground control station.

The Forgotten Crime of War Itself

A new book argues that efforts to humanize war with smarter weaponry have obscured the task of making peace the first goal of foreign policy.
Donald Rumsfeld in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2005 (Jim Young-Pool/Getty Images).

Lasting Cruelties

A new book situates the War on Terror as a story of domination which traces back to the founding of the US as a settler-colonial and slaveholding behemoth.
Artwork of Hannah Arendt looking through the outline of a map of Ukraine.

Why We Should Read Hannah Arendt Now

"The Origins of Totalitarianism" has much to say about a world of rising authoritarianism.