Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His books include: "A Nation Unmade by War" (2018, Dispatch Books), "Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World" (2014, 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" (2011), "The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's" (2010), "The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond" (2007), as well as of a novel, "The Last Days of Publishing" (2005).
Articles by this author
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Views Tuesday, January 05, 2021 Saying Goodbye to the Con-Man-in-Chief 2021 has indeed begun and god knows what it has in store for us. But unless, somehow, we’re surprised beyond imagining, The Donald is indeed going to leave the White House soon and, much as I hate to admit it, in some strange fashion we’re going to miss him. Of course, it will be beyond a great... Read more |
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Views Monday, December 21, 2020 What If, After 9/11, George W. Bush Had Thrown Parties? 'Tis the season to be folly Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la Don(ald) we now our gay apparel, Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la!... It's party time in the nation's capital and the Christmas spirit reigns supreme, even if the Texas Republican Party does want to secede from the Union. I mean, who doesn't? And... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, December 01, 2020 The History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire We're now living in an age of opacity, as Rudy Giuliani pointed out in a courtroom recently. Here was the exchange : "'In the plaintiffs' counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity,' Giuliani said. 'I'm not quite sure I know what opacity means... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, November 10, 2020 State of Chaos In 2016 as now, he was the candidate of chaos. Yes, he was a billionaire (or wanna-be billionaire or in-hock billionaire , not to mention a liar, a cheat, and a scoundrel), but from the beginning, he appealed to the forces of order in America that were also, as it happened, the forces of chaos... Read more |
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Views Monday, November 02, 2020 We've Been on Donald Trump's Road for a Long, Long Time It was summer almost half a century ago when I got into that Volkswagen van and began my trip across country with Peter, a photographer friend. I was officially doing so as a reporter for a small San Francisco news service, having been sent out to tap the mood of the nation in a politically fraught... Read more |
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Views Monday, October 05, 2020 America’s Maestro of Death and Destruction Yes, when he was running for president, he did indeed say : "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible." Then he won—and this November 3rd (or thereafter), whether he wins or loses, we're likely to find out that, when... Read more |
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Views Monday, September 21, 2020 Fire and Fury Like the World Has Never Seen It was August 2017 and Donald Trump had not yet warmed up to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s portly dictator. In fact, in typical Trumpian fashion, he was pissed at the Korean leader and, no less typically, he lashed out verbally, threatening that country with a literal hell on Earth. As he put it, "... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, September 08, 2020 Fourth World or American Carnage From a Pandemic President The year was 1991 and the United States was suddenly the globe’s lone superpower, its ultimate hyperpower, the last and greatest of its kind, the soon-to-be- indispensable nation . The only one left—alone, utterly alone and triumphant atop the world. Who could have asked for more? Or better? It had... Read more |
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Views Monday, August 10, 2020 It Could Have Been Different Let me be blunt. This wasn’t the world I imagined for my denouement. Not faintly. Of course, I can’t claim I ever really imagined such a place. Who, in their youth, considers their death and the world that might accompany it, the one you might leave behind for younger generations? I’m 76 now. True... Read more |
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Views Thursday, July 16, 2020 Donald J. Trump as Osama bin Laden's Revenge It’s July 2020 and I’m about to turn 76, which, as far as I’m concerned, officially makes me an old man. So put up with my aging, wandering brain here, since (I swear) I wasn’t going to start this piece with Donald J. Trump, no matter his latest wild claims or bizarre statements, increasingly white... Read more |