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
 |
Views Thursday, December 13, 2018 A Bad World for Migrants (and I Don’t Even Mean Human Ones) It’s not been a good era for migrants—and no, I’m not talking about those “caravans” of desperate human beings from Central America heading for the U.S. (and the wrath of Donald J. Trump). I’m thinking about birds—shorebirds, in fact, which are surely the greatest migrants on the planet. The... Read more |
 |
Views Monday, December 10, 2018 In the Shadow of Donald Trump: A World Unnoticed Breaking News! -- as NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt often puts it when beginning his evening broadcast. Here, in summary, is my view of the news that’s breaking in the United States on just about any day of the week: Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Trump. Or rather (in the president’s style):... Read more |
 |
Views Thursday, November 15, 2018 The Donald and the Fake News Media Face it: it’s been an abusive time, to use a word he likes to wield. In his telling, of course, it’s he or his people who are always the abused ones and they -- the “fake news media” -- are the abusers. But let’s be honest. You’ve been abused, too, and so have I. All of us have and by that same... Read more |
 |
Views Tuesday, November 06, 2018 Autocrats, Inc.: Thoughts on Election Day 2018 Who could forget that moment? The blue [red] wave -- long promised but also doubted -- had, however modestly [however massively], hit Washington and [the Democrats had just retaken Congress] [the Republicans had held Congress] [the Democrats had taken the House]. The media, Fox News and the usual... Read more |
 |
Views Monday, October 22, 2018 (Un)Happy Anniversary! 17 Years of US War (and More to Come) We’re already two years past the crystal anniversary and eight years short of the silver one, or at least we would be, had it been a wedding -- and, after a fashion, perhaps it was. On October 7, 2001, George W. Bush launched the invasion -- “liberation” was the word often used then -- of... Read more |
 |
Views Thursday, September 27, 2018 In the Heart of a Dying Empire When you think about it, the Earth is a relatively modest-sized planet—about 25,000 miles in circumference at the Equator, with a total surface area of 197 million square miles, almost three-quarters of which is water. It’s not so hard, if you’re in a certain frame of mind (as American officials... Read more |
 |
Views Thursday, September 06, 2018 What Will Donald Trump Be Remembered For? I know you won’t believe me. Not now, not when everything Donald Trump does -- any tweet, any insult at any rally -- is the news of the day, any day. But he won’t be remembered for any of the things now in our headlines. No human being, it’s true, has ever been covered the way he has, so what an... Read more |
 |
Views Thursday, August 16, 2018 The War Piece to End All War Pieces Fair warning. Stop reading right now if you want, because I’m going to repeat myself. What choice do I have, since my subject is the Afghan War (America’s second Afghan War, no less)? I began writing about that war in October 2001, almost 17 years ago, just after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan... Read more |
 |
Views Friday, July 27, 2018 Three Failing Experiments? Mine, America’s, and Humanity’s There was a period in my later life when I used to say that, from the age of 20 to my late sixties, I was always 40 years old; I was, that is, an old young man and a young old one. Tell that to my legs now. Of course, there’s nothing faintly strange in such a development. It’s the most ordinary... Read more |
 |
Views Monday, July 09, 2018 America’s Addictions: Opioids, Donald Trump, and War When you think of addiction in America today, one thing comes to mind: the opioid epidemic. And it should. It’s serious. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, almost 64,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses in 2016 ( more than died in the Vietnam War), an average of 175 people a... Read more |