Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His sixth and latest book, just published, is A Nation Unmade by War (Dispatch Books).Previous books include: Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World (with an introduction by Glenn Greenwald). Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 (co-authored with Nick Turse), The United States of Fear, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's, The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.
Articles by this author
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Views Friday, July 19, 2019 Planet of the Surreal: Turning 75 in the Age of Trump As I turn 75, there’s no simpler way to put it than this: I’m an old man on a new planet -- and, in case it isn’t instantly obvious, that’s not good news on either score. I still have a memory of being a camp counselor in upstate New York more than half a century ago. I was perhaps 20 years old and... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, July 02, 2019 We’re Not the Good Guys Headlined “U.S. Seeks Other Ways to Stop Iran Shy of War,” the article was tucked away on page A9 of a recent New York Times. Still, it caught my attention. Here's the first paragraph: “American intelligence and military officers are working on additional clandestine plans to counter Iranian... Read more |
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Views Monday, June 17, 2019 If Donald Trump Is the Symptom... Then What’s the Disease? Don’t try to deny it! The political temperature of this country is rising fast. Call it Trump change or Trump warming, if you want, but grasp one thing: increasingly, you’re in a different land and, whatever happens to Donald Trump, the results down the line are likely to be ever less pretty. Trump... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, May 28, 2019 What Happened to the Global Anti-War Movement? Call it strange, but call it something. After all, never in history had there been such active opposition to a war before it began. I’m thinking, of course, about the antiwar surge that, in the winter and early spring of 2003, preceded the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Starting in the autumn of 2002, in... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, May 21, 2019 The United States of... American Exceptionalism and Overseas Meddling In this country, reactions to the Mueller report have been all-American beyond belief. Let's face it, when it comes to election meddling, it’s been me, me, me, 24/7 here. Yes, in some fashion some set of Russians meddled in the last election campaign, whether it was, as Jared Kushner improbably... Read more |
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Views Thursday, April 25, 2019 Plenty of 'Collusion' for The Ultimate Crime: Lighting the Earth on Fire As Notre Dame burned, as the flames leapt from its roof of ancient timbers, many of us watched in grim horror. Hour after hour, on screen after screen, channel after channel, you could see that 850-year-old cathedral, a visiting spot for 13 million people annually, being gutted, its roof timbers... Read more |
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Views Monday, April 15, 2019 American War Is Off the Charts Here’s a statement it might be hard to disagree with: American war is off the charts. Still, I’d like to explain -- but I’m nervous about doing so. I know perfectly well that the next word I plan to write will send most of you tumbling elsewhere in a universe in which “news” is the latest grotesque... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 28, 2019 Donald Trump Naked as a Jaybird: The 47-Minute Presidency Recently, I did something rare in my life. Over a long weekend, I took a few days away and almost uniquely -- I might even say miraculously -- never saw Donald Trump’s face, since I didn’t watch TV and barely checked the news. They were admittedly terrible days in which 50 people were slaughtered... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 07, 2019 Feminism, Radical Literature, and Little Old Me Sometimes your past returns in the strangest of ways, as happened to me when today’s article from TomDispatch regular Rebecca Gordon first crossed my doorstep. As you’ll see, its subject would not be one on which this almost 75-year-old guy would consider himself to have the slightest expertise:... Read more |
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Views Monday, March 04, 2019 A Swiftian Modest Proposal for the President Call me crazy, if you want, but I think I see how to do it! We have two intractable issues, one intractable president, and an intractable world, but what if it weren’t so? What if those two intractable problems could be swept off the table by a single gesture from that same intractable man? As a... Read more |