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The International Chemical Weapons Taboo

Our horror of chemical agents is one of the great success stories of modern diplomacy.
by Richard Price via Boston Globe on September 8, 2013
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
LAPD building dedicated to William H. Parker.

The World Darryl Gates Made: Race, Policing, and the Birth of SWAT

The very features that made the LAPD appear more professional also expanded its reach and capacity for violence.
by Aaron Stagoff-Belfort via The Metropole on May 7, 2025
rattlesnake

How the Rattlesnake Almost Became an Emblem of a Nascent America

On the centuries-long historical evolution of a serpentine symbol.
by Stephen S. Hall via Literary Hub on April 24, 2025
Vladimir Putin's eyes revealed from behind torn paper.

How America Wasted Its Most Powerful Economic Weapon

If world leaders had been clearer about the sanctions Putin would face, they might have deterred his invasion of Ukraine.
by Edward Fishman via The Atlantic on February 24, 2025
Three identical pictures of the explosion of an atomic bomb with different coloring.

How Literature Predicted and Portrayed the Atom Bomb

On Pierrepoint B. Noyes, H.G. Wells, and the “Superweapons” of early science-fiction.
by Dorian Lynskey via Literary Hub on January 28, 2025
The American flag and the South Korean flag.

Eighty Years of Martial Law

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of martial law is of little import compared to the American occupation of the country.
by Jason Morgan via The American Conservative on December 24, 2024
Photo of 5 skeletons controlling panels.

Notes from the Cold War Underground

The weapons infrastructure of the Cold War is now getting rented out on Airbnb or memorialized as patriotic kitsch.
by Emily Harnett via The Baffler on October 22, 2024
Photographs of historian Zachary Schrag and his father Philip Schrag in front of a Nuclear War plan background

Two Generations of Nuclear Hopes and Nuclear Fears

A conversation with historian Zachary Schrag and his father Philip Schrag about their multi-generational encounters with nuclear threats.
by Alex Wellerstein via Doomsday Machines on October 4, 2024
A pile of guns and rifle magazines on top of bullets.

More Guns, More Money: How America Turned Weapons Into a Consumer Commodity

How an American arms dealer and a surplus of guns in Europe after World War II popularized gun ownership.
by Andrew C. McKevitt via Literary Hub on September 12, 2024
Summer Interns, posting with the casing of a B-61 bomb in 1982.

Pantex Employee Photos, 1980s

Team photographs at a nuclear weapons factory offer a glimpse into the mundanity and materiality of the bomb.
by Alex Wellerstein via Doomsday Machines on August 13, 2024
Éamon de Valera, shown between 1918 and 1920, around the time he escaped from prison. He later became prime minister and president of Ireland.

The New York-Born Politician Who Was Convicted, then Became President

Éamon de Valera was accused of attempting an armed uprising against the government. Then he made a daring jailbreak, and later became president of Ireland.
by George Bass via Retropolis on June 9, 2024
Pro-Israel counterprotesters hold Israeli flags on the edges of a pro-Palestine encampment at Northeastern University in Boston, April 26, 2024.

The New Anti-Antisemitism

The response to college protests against the war on Gaza exemplifies the darkness of the Trumpocene.
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on May 8, 2024
War tax alternate fund information form.

Death and Taxes

The long history and contemporary relevance of war tax resistance.
by Tyler McBrien via Protean on April 15, 2024
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in March 2015.

Kissinger Revisited

The former secretary of state is responsible for virtually every American geopolitical disaster of the past half-century.
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on February 28, 2024
A parade in Rio de Janeiro consisting of Brazilian Expeditionary Force soldiers and American 10th Mountain Division soldiers.

Skis, Samba, and Smoking Snakes: An Unlikely World War II Partnership

What happened when glacier-goggled American ski troops and samba-loving Brazilian soldiers fought side-by-side halfway across the world?
by Carson Teuscher via Origins on January 13, 2024
Henry Kissinger in his office, standing behind a desk and reading a folder

The People Who Didn’t Matter to Henry Kissinger

Lauded for his strategic insights, the former secretary of state is better remembered for his callousness toward the victims of global conflict.
by Gary J. Bass via The Atlantic on November 29, 2023

The Men Who Started the War

John Brown and the Secret Six—the abolitionists who funded the raid on Harpers Ferry—confronted a question as old as America: When is violence justified?
by Drew Gilpin Faust via The Atlantic on November 13, 2023
Revolutionary War reenactors shooting muskets.

“Originalist” Arguments Against Gun Control Get U.S. History Completely Wrong

Gun control is actually an American tradition.
by Mary C. Curtis, Robert J. Spitzer via Slate on May 3, 2023
Illustration of a soldier in a tank battering through a fiery wooden structure.

A Fire Started in Waco. Thirty Years Later, It’s Still Burning.

Behind the Oklahoma City bombing and even the January 6th attack was a military-style assault in Texas that galvanized the far right.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The New Yorker on May 1, 2023
Collage of Putin, Khruschev, a missile, and a fighter jet.

Blundering on the Brink

The secret history and unlearned lessons of the Cuban missile crisis.
by Vladislav Zubok, Sergey Radchenko via Foreign Affairs on April 3, 2023
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.
by Hal Brands via Foreign Affairs on February 28, 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
SCLC leader Wyatt T. Walker and Jackie Robinson tour the ruins of Mount Olive Baptist Church, Sasser, Georgia, September 9th, 1962.

‘A Model Southern Sheriff’: Z.T. Mathews and the 1962 Fight for Voting Rights in Terrell County

A glaring portrait of the human cost of law enforcement officers who claim to be above the law.
by David Kurlander via CAFE on January 26, 2023
Censored text and George W. Bush with a black bar covering his eyes. Art by Alex Cochran.

What Really Took America to War in Iraq

A fatal combination of fear, power, and hubris.
by Melvyn P. Leffler via The Atlantic on January 23, 2023
Spanish Siege of Pensacola (March 9-May 8, 1781), engraving by Vernier from 1st edition of Jean B.G. Roux de Rochelle's Etats-Unis d'Amerique in 1837.

The American Revolution's Forgotten Spanish Hero

How Bernardo de Galvez turned the tide against British supremacy on the continent.
by Itxu Diaz via The American Conservative on October 21, 2022
Divers examine an iron anchor underwater.

What a Spanish Shipwreck Reveals About the Final Years of the Slave Trade

Forty-one of the 561 enslaved Africans on board the "Guerrero" died when the illegal slave ship sank off the Florida Keys in 1827.
by Simcha Jacobovici, Sean Kingsley via Smithsonian on October 17, 2022
New York City sidewalk full of people wearing hats.

Hat Havoc in the Big Apple

The Hat Riots of 1922 show how arbitrary, elite rules can spur civil unrest.
by Katrina Gulliver via Law & Liberty on September 9, 2022
Noam Chomsky

“Every Time We Build Up Our Military Budget, We’re Attacking Ourselves”

Noam Chomsky discusses the hypocrisies of US empire and why if we really wanted to build a decent society, we’d immediately slash the massive military budget.
by David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky via Jacobin on June 17, 2022
A picture of an assault rifle on a red background.

The Rifle That Ruined America

As an NRA-approved icon and the mass shooter’s weapon of choice, the AR-15 has done untold harm.
by Ryan Busse via The Atlantic on June 15, 2022
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