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John Gunther sitting in his library.

The Birth of the American Foreign Correspondent

For American journalists abroad in the interwar period, it paid to have enthusiasm, openness, and curiosity, but not necessarily a world view.
by Krithika Varagur via The New Yorker on March 17, 2022
Military facility destroyed by shelling near Kyiv, Ukraine

Was it Inevitable? A Short History of Russia’s War on Ukraine

To understand the tragedy of this war, it is worth going back beyond the last few weeks and months, and even beyond Vladimir Putin.
by Keith Gessen via The Guardian on March 11, 2022
Checkpoint Charlie, seen from West Berlin in 1960.

The Disastrous Return of Cold War Strategy

Hal Brands urges the U.S. to make China and Russia “pay exorbitantly” for their policies. History shows that has never worked.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on March 10, 2022
Screen shots of PBS NewsHour anchors with title cards about conflicts in Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Afghanistan.
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“Burning with a Deadly Heat”

PBS NewsHour coverage of the hot wars of the Cold War.
by Alyssa Knapp via American Archive of Public Broadcasting on March 7, 2022
Vladimir Putin sitting with three Russian military officials.

Ignored Warnings: How NATO Expansion Led to the Current Ukraine Tragedy

NATO expansion - the trigger for Russia's attack on Ukraine?
by Ted Carpenter via 1945 on February 24, 2022
Bill Clinton and Vladimir Putin pose for a photo op in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1999.

How We Got From the Cold War to the Current Russian Standoff (and It’s Not All on Putin)

Yes, the Russian leader is an authoritarian aggressor. But different decisions at key points by the U.S. might have made him less so.
by Jordan Michael Smith via The New Republic on January 28, 2022
The picture is a photo collage of three men against the background of an atomic bomb explosion. Pictured from left to right is Ed Hall, Ted Hall, and former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

One Brother Gave the Soviets the A-Bomb. The Other Got a Medal.

J. Edgar Hoover had both of them in his sights. Yet neither one was ever arrested. The untold story of how the Hall brothers beat the FBI.
by Dave Lindorff via The Nation on January 4, 2022
Paul Robeson in 1960, London, performing on stage in front of a crowd.

Black King of Songs

His communism brought the great American singer Paul Robeson trouble in the US, but helped make him a hero in China.
by Gao Yunxiang via Aeon on December 18, 2021
A still from the film "The Manchurian Candidate," in which a military officer interrogates a nervous, sweating man.

Brainwashing Has a Grim History That We Shouldn’t Dismiss

Scientific research and historical accounts can help us identify and dissect the threat of ‘coercive persuasion.’
by Joel E. Dimsdale via Psyche on November 24, 2021
Geneticist Hermann Muller and his electronic equipment.

The Big ‘What If’ of Cancer

How a feisty, suicidal Nobel laureate infuriated both Hitler and Stalin, and stalled cancer research for fifty years along the way.
by Sam Kean via The Disappearing Spoon on November 23, 2021
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
Book cover of Public Confessions: The Religious Conversions That Changed American Politics"

Sex, Lies, and Repentance

Reflection on the importance of sex in the spiritual redemption narratives that riveted the American public.
by Rebecca L. Davis via UNC Press Blog on September 16, 2021
Blood over image of Afghan security in Kabul

The War on Terror: 20 Years of Bloodshed and Delusion

From the beginning, the War on Terror merged red-hot vengeance with calculated opportunism. Millions are still paying the price.
by Tariq Ali via The Nation on September 7, 2021
A protest sign against involvement in WWII
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A Brief History of the "Isolationist" Strawman

The word “isolationist” has been used by the U.S. foreign policy establishment to narrow the range of acceptable public opinion on America’s role in the world.
by Brandan P. Buck via HNN on August 29, 2021

‘The Temperature in Saigon Is 105 and Rising’

What I learned about American power watching the U.S. leave Vietnam — and then Afghanistan decades later.
by Phil Caputo via Politico Magazine on August 21, 2021
The skeleton of a whale

Out to Sea

Since the 1970s, the U.S. and Russia have used marine mammals to further their military objectives, sparking protest from animal rights activists.
by Susanna Space via Guernica on July 15, 2021
The wreckage of the Twin Towers on 11th September 2001.

The Legacy of 9/11

After 20 years of foreign policy failures following the attacks on the World Trade Center, America is finally rethinking its place in the world.
by Stephen Wertheim via Prospect Magazine on July 14, 2021
Cover of the book, "Restricted Data: the History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States" by Alex Wellerstein

Secrets, Sins, and Nuclear Insecurity

Only a certain kind of person, both foolish and resolute, would choose to study a subject so extensive, yet so restrictive, as the secrets of nuclear weapons.
by Joshua Roebke via Los Angeles Review of Books on May 19, 2021
U.S. soldiers in combat during the Korean War
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How the Korean War Changed the Way the U.S. Goes to Battle

In the Cold War, North Korean Communists invaded South Korea. President Truman’s decision to intervene had consequences that shape the world today.
via Retro Report on April 19, 2021
Richard Wright

When Richard Wright Broke With the Communists

His posthumously released novel, “The Man Who Lived Underground,” was written during a crisis of political faith.
by Colin Asher via The New Republic on April 19, 2021
A mosaic of freedom and associated ideas

How Americans Lost Their Fervor for Freedom

The New Yorker critic's new book is a sequel of sorts to "The Metaphysical Club."
by Evan Kindley via The New Republic on April 14, 2021
Two people speaking together across a border.

The Competing Visions of English and Esperanto

How English and Esperanto offer competing visions of a universal language.
by Stephanie Tam via The Believer on April 1, 2021
Background photo shows secret deployment of Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. On the right is a photo of Juanita Moody.

The Once-Classified Tale of Juanita Moody: The Woman Who Helped Avert a Nuclear War

America’s bold response to the Soviet Union depended on an unknown spy agency operative whose story can at last be told.
by David Wolman, Susan Seubert via Smithsonian on February 23, 2021
illustration of boy playing Cold War video game

First-Person Shooter Ideology

The cultural contradictions of Call of Duty.
by Daniel Bessner via The Drift on February 2, 2021

How Sci-Fi Shaped Socialism

Sci-fi has long provided an outlet for socialist thinkers — offering readers a break from capitalist realism and allowing us to imagine a different world.
by Nick Hubble via Jacobin on December 18, 2020
American Imperialism

Warfare State

Democrats and Republicans are increasingly united in an anti-China front. But their approaches to U.S. foreign policy diverge.
by Thomas Meaney via London Review of Books on October 28, 2020

The World Henry Ford Made

A new history charts the global legacy of Fordist mass production, tracing its appeal to political formations on both the left and the right.
by Justin H. Vassallo via Boston Review on October 9, 2020
Joseph McCarthy presenting a map.

The Real Legacy of a Demagogue

A new biography of Joseph McCarthy does not reckon with the devastating effects of anti-communism.
by Dan Kaufman via The New Republic on October 2, 2020

Joseph McCarthy and the Force of Political Falsehoods

McCarthy never sent a single “subversive” to jail, but, decades later, the spirit of his conspiracy-mongering endures.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on July 27, 2020
A graphic featuring a plane dropping particles upon crouching people and a man looking into a microscope.

The Great Germ War Cover-Up

When Nicholson Baker searched for the truth about biological weapons, he found a fog of redaction.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Republic on July 13, 2020
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