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Old car holding up a mining chute on the over of the book “The Bootleg Coal Rebellion”

Rock-Fuel and Warlike People: On Mitch Troutman’s “The Bootleg Coal Rebellion”

Native son Jonah Walters finds something entirely too innocent about the tales told about the anthracite industry’s origins.
by Jonah Walters via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 21, 2024
Operatives using air defense systems.

The Two Chomskys

The US military’s greatest enemy worked in an institution saturated with military funding. How did it shape his thought?
by Chris Knight via Aeon on December 8, 2023
Visitors sit next to displays of missiles and a sea defense weapon system at the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, or Airshow China, in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, China, on Sept. 29
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Fear About China’s New Space Weapon Echoes Older Worries About War From Space

And that’s exactly why there is no need to overreact.
by Stephen Buono via Made By History on October 26, 2021
British soldiers with a four-horn sound locator. This photograph documents a military drill during the interwar period.

Powers of Hearing: The Military Science of Sound Location

During WWI the act of hearing was recast as a tactical activity — one that could determine human and even national survival.
by Gascia Ouzounian via The MIT Press Reader on July 26, 2021
Head netting for desert camouflage, 1973.

These Striking Photos Show the Secret, Strange World of Military Research and Development

An obscure archive reveals the science—and art—behind combat culture.
by Rian Dundon via Timeline on November 15, 2017
A soldier on a tank, aiming an M-16 rifle.

M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story

Why the rifles jammed.
by James Fallows via The Atlantic on June 1, 1981
Workers adjust a metal sheet on a Titan missile assembly line.

The Permanent War Economy Doesn’t Benefit Workers

Advocates of “military Keynesianism” present it as a boon for the working class. In reality, it diverts resources away from social provision.
by Hanna Goldberg via Jacobin on June 23, 2025
Arthur Morgan from video game Red Dead Redemption 2 sporting a gun and cowboy hat.

Cult of the Cowboy: Inside the Toxic Adoration of an All-American Obsession

Video games, violence and the enduring allure of the vigilante hero.
by Rachel Wagner via Literary Hub on February 26, 2025
Map of the US Air Force Atlantic Missile Range stations in 1957

Making the American Orbit

The U.S. military operated a Grand Turk missile tracking station for 30 years, with limited local benefits, highlighting American expansionism's impact.
by Andrew J. Ross via Perspectives on History on October 8, 2024
Men and women working in a factory during World War 2.

Dispelling the WWII Productivity Myth

Generally speaking, emergencies tend to reduce productivity, at least in the short and medium terms.
by Alberto Mingardi via Law & Liberty on July 30, 2024
A collection of supplies inside of a fallout shelter.

Nine Hot Weeks, with Misgivings

Cataloguing basement fallout shelters in the summer of 1967.
by Monte Davis via 3 Quarks Daily on July 16, 2024
The radioactive plume from the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, dropped by a US B-29 superfortress Bockscar.

Slave to the Bomb

We don’t need to imagine a world ravaged by nuclear war – we’re already living in it.
by Erik Baker via The Saturday Evening Post on March 28, 2024

How American Intelligence Was Born in the Trenches of World War I

The Great War forced the US to create a modern spying and analysis apparatus.
by Derek Leebaert via SpyTalk on March 6, 2024
Photo of Joseph Weizenbaum against a collage of antiwar protests and code.

‘A Certain Danger Lurks There’: How the Inventor of the First Chatbot Turned Against AI

Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum was there at the dawn of artificial intelligence– but he was also adamant that we must never confuse computers with humans.
by Ben Tarnoff via The Guardian on July 25, 2023
Illustration of workers designed like they are a part of a technological apparatus.

How Stanford Helped Capitalism Take Over the World

The ruthless logic driving our economy can be traced back to 19th-century Palo Alto.
by Sammy Feldblum via The Chronicle of Higher Education on July 20, 2023
Petroglyphs in southern Wyoming, probably dating to the early 17th century, include well-preserved images of horses and riders, depicted with riding equipment and shields.

Horse Nations

After the Spanish conquest, horses transformed Native American tribes much earlier than historians thought.
by Andrew Curry via Science on March 30, 2023
A man scuba diving.

Filming the Deep: Underwater Film Technologies

The author of a new book, The Underwater Eye, discusses how film enables audiences "to connect to the most remote environment on the planet: the ocean."
by John Plotz, Margaret Cohen via Public Books on March 23, 2023
US Signal Station on the trail to Pike’s Peak.

Civil War Weather

The U.S. Army's contributions to meteorology.
by Cecily Nelson Zander via Emerging Civil War on February 28, 2023
A balloon drifts above the Atlantic Ocean off South Carolina on Feb. 4, shortly before it was shot down.
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Panic Over Spy Balloon Echoes Misguided Alarm Over Sputnik

In this case, freaking out makes even less sense because spy balloons are historically a sign of weakness.
by Kenneth Osgood via Made By History on February 13, 2023
Photos of UFO and the Chinese Spy Balloon.

Why Americans Are So Unsettled by the Chinese Spy Balloon

China’s balloon, whatever its purpose, became a physical and observable reminder of the often-invisible work nations do to keep tabs on one another.
by Kelsey D. Atherton via Slate on February 10, 2023
A Japanese bomb-carrying paper balloon in North America in 1945.

When Japanese Balloons Threatened American Skies During World War II

Japan sent nearly 10,000 bomb-bearing balloons toward the U.S. during World War II. One killed six people.
by Kathryn Tolbert via Retropolis on February 3, 2023
Lee Harvey Oswald in Police Custody

Decades Later, The JFK Assassination Still Keeps Some Secrets

A helpful way to think about the JFK assassination, and political assassinations more generally, is to be more Dragnet about it than discursive.
by Noah Kulwin via Defector on January 25, 2023
Black and white photo of Pruitt-Igoe buildings being destroyed.

Pruitt-Igoe: A Black Community Under the "Atomic Cloud"

In the 1950s, the U.S. military conducted unethical radiological experiments on Black communities, including the Pruitt-Igoe public housing complex.
by Devin Thomas O’Shea via Protean on November 28, 2022
Black-and-white photograph of President Dwight Eisenhower smiling at camera from his desk

The Effective Conservative Governance of Ike Eisenhower

The conservative successes of the Eisenhower administration have been too quickly forgotten.
by Geoffrey Kabaservice via The American Conservative on October 15, 2022
Picture of four men holding a model B-52 plane, in front of backdrop of two aircrafts.

The B-52 Was Designed In A Hotel Room Over One Weekend (And Will Probably Fly For 100 Years)

The B-52’s prolific service career spans not only decades and conflicts, but eras of aviation.
by Alex Hollings via Sandboxx on September 13, 2022
Erick Cedeño on a bicycle and map of a route through the west.

Following the Black Soldiers who Biked Across America

Bikepacking historian Erick Cedeño retraces the Buffalo soldiers' legendary journey from Montana to Missouri to rethink it and its place in American history.
by Logan Watts, Dexter Thomas via Bikepacking on August 3, 2022
Members of the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps pose on Minerva Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park in 1896. From Montana Historical Society.

The Black Buffalo Soldiers Who Biked Across the American West

In 1897, the 25th Infantry Regiment Bicycle Corps embarked on a 1,900-mile journey from Montana to Missouri.
by David Kindy via Smithsonian on June 14, 2022
Man in American themed boxers, carrying a semiautomatic rifle

How Did Guns Get So Powerful?

Decade by decade, firearms have become deadlier—and tightened their grip on our collective imagination.
by Phil Klay via The New Yorker on June 11, 2022
Poster for "Dr. Strangelove"

Hotline Suspense

The entire plot of Stanley Kubrick's Cold War satire turns around getting people on the phone.
by Devin Short via Contingent on March 19, 2022
Chemical lab buildings around American University campus.

The Dangerous Ghosts of WWI Research in Spring Valley

World War I saw the advent of chemical weaponry, and a mysterious chapter in the history of American University in Northwest DC.
by Fontana Micucci via Boundary Stones on February 25, 2022
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