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 Thursday, June 18, 2020 The Pre-History of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire: A Rant Let me rant for a moment. I don’t do it often, maybe ever. I’m not Donald Trump. Though I’m only two years older than him, I don’t even know how to tweet and that tells you everything you really need to know about Tom Engelhardt in a world clearly passing me by. Still, after years in which America’... Read more |
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Views Monday, June 01, 2020 Donald Trump May Not Be Herbert Hoover Class of 2020, wherever you are, I had planned to address you on this graduation day. But how can I? Yes, I know that former President Obama , Oprah Winfrey , and Tom Hanks all took part in elaborate online graduation ceremonies, offering commentary, advice, and encouragement in our now campus-less... Read more |
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Views Thursday, April 30, 2020 The Killer-in-Chief “Be assured of one thing: whichever candidate you choose at the polls in November, you aren’t just electing a president of the United States; you are also electing an assassin-in-chief.” So I wrote back in June 2012, with a presidential election approaching. I was referring then to the war on... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, April 14, 2020 Might the Coronavirus Be a Peacemaker? Let me quote a Trumpian figure from long ago, Henry Ford. That’s right, the bigot who created the Ford Motor Company (and once even ran for president ). Back in 1916, in an interview with a Chicago Tribune reporter, he offered this bit of wisdom on the subject of history: "Say, what do I care about... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, March 24, 2020 In Memoriam: A Planet of Missing Beauties The other morning, walking at the edge of a local park, I caught sight of a beautiful red cardinal , the first bird I ever saw some 63 years ago. Actually, to make that sentence accurate, I should probably have put either “first” or “ever saw” in quotation marks. After all, I was already 12 years... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, March 04, 2020 The Trump Conundrum Here’s the truth of it: I’d like a presidential pardon. Really, I would. And I think I deserve it more than Michael Milken or Rod Blagojevich or—because it’s obviously heading our way— Roger Stone (not to speak of Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort). Unlike the rest of them, I genuinely deserve a... Read more |
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Views Thursday, February 13, 2020 War Addicts, Inc. My first question is simple enough: After 18-plus years of our forever wars, where are all the questions? Almost two decades of failing American wars across a startlingly large part of the planet and I’d like to know, for instance, who's been fired for them? Who’s been impeached? Who’s even paying... Read more |
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Views Monday, January 27, 2020 For the Fate of Planet Earth, Please See Page 5 Let me betray my age for a moment. Some of you, I know, will be shocked, but I still read an actual newspaper. Words on real paper every day. I’m talking about the New York Times, and something stuck with me from the January 9th edition of that "paper" paper. Of course, in the world of the Internet... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 09, 2020 The Global War of Error Yes, our infrastructure stinks , our schools are failing , this country’s a nightmare of inequality, and there’s a self-promoting madman in the White House, so isn’t it time to take pride in the rare institutional victories America has had in this century? Arguably, none has been more striking than... Read more |
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Views Monday, December 23, 2019 Is Donald Trump America's Second 9/11? Here's the question at hand—and I guarantee you that you’ll read it here first: Is Donald Trump the second or even possibly the third 9/11? Because truly, he has to be one or the other. Let me explain, and while I do, keep this in mind: as 2019 ends, thanks to Brexit and the victory of Boris... Read more |