Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book is, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World (with an introduction by Glenn Greenwald). Previous books include 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, April 12, 2018 A Tale of American Hubris The lessons of history? Who needs them? Certainly not Washington's present cast of characters, a crew in flight from history, the past, or knowledge of more or less any sort. Still, just for the hell of it, let’s take a few moments to think about what some of the lessons of the last years of the... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, March 27, 2018 Donald Trump and the White Ford Bronco Presidency A record? Come on! Don’t minimize what’s happening. It’s far too unique, too unprecedented even to be classified as “historic.” Call it mega-historic, if you wish. Never from Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar to Soviet despot Joseph Stalin, from the Sun King Louis the XIV to President Ronald Reagan,... Read more |
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Views Thursday, March 01, 2018 The Ultimate Blowback Universe You want to see “blowback” in action? That's easy enough. All you need is a vague sense of how Google Search works. Then type into it phrases like “ warmest years ,” “ rising sea levels ,” “ melting ice ,” “ lengthening wildfire season ,” or “ future climate refugees ,” and you’ll find yourself... Read more |
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Views Friday, February 16, 2018 And the Winners (in America’s Wars) Are… When it comes to America’s wars, more than 16 years later our generals are victorious. Not, of course, in the distant lands where those conflicts grind on unendingly, but in the one place that matters: Washington, D.C. Could there be a more striking sign of that than the elevation of three of those... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, February 13, 2018 Whistling Past the Graveyard (of Empires) If you’re in the mood, would you consider taking a walk with me and, while we’re at it, thinking a little about America’s wars? Nothing particularly ambitious, mind you, just — if you’re up for it — a stroll to the corner. Now, admittedly, there’s a small catch here. Where exactly is that corner? I... Read more |
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Views Monday, February 12, 2018 Donald Trump Is Stealing From Our Children Think of President Trump and his administration as a den of thieves. There is, of course, the obvious thievery: what they will in the end, as with the recently passed tax “reform” bill, steal from ordinary citizens and offer as never-ending presents to the already staggeringly wealthy, among them... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, January 30, 2018 The Military God of America’s Losing Wars I recently read Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House . No book -- that antiquated object that displays writing on pages of paper -- has gotten news attention quite like it in a long time. Of course, that’s what happens when only one person truly matters anymore -- and you... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 25, 2018 Creating an Empire of Graveyards? Recently, a memory of my son as a small boy came back to me. He was, in those days, terrified of clowns. Something about their strange, mask-like, painted faces unnerved him utterly, chilled him to the bone. To the rest of us, they were comic, but to him -- or so I came to imagine anyway -- they... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, January 23, 2018 In 1888, The Story of a Parentless Dreamer from Shithole Europe More than three decades ago, my aunt Hilda wrote an account of her father’s voyage to and life in America for my daughter to read “someday.” She began it this way: “Your great grandfather, Moore Engelhardt, a boy of 16, arrived in New York from Europe in March 1888. It was during the famous... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, January 09, 2018 Welcome to 2018: Another "Non-War Year" in Oblivious America If you want to know something about life in America these days, consider how New York Times columnist David Leonhardt began his first piece of the year, “ 7 Wishes for 2018 ”: "Well, at least it’s not 2017 anymore. I expect that future historians will look back on it as one of the darker non-war... Read more |