I saw Colm Meaney walking toward me, talking animatedly on a cell phone. It was 1999, when those were still a bit uncommon.

A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty: My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media. Huh? When did I say that?!

Please read my latest piece in the Atlantic, "The Cowards at the Atlantic Refuse to Publish My Anti-Woke Screeds"

Discovering that andouillette ≠ andouille in the La Courneuve cafeteria.

I miss Wilford Brimley.

The lunacy of pretending that *any* presidential speech is devoid of political import.

Better days

"Experts tell us that though technical change has transformed modern warfare, the coming of the machine does not mean that we shall ever have a robot war from which the primary human elements, courage, heroism, intelligence and morale will have departed." - FDR, June 12, 1939

I am a student at Brown in communication with a friend at RIBC. There is an urgent need for blood donations to support RI. Donations in NY, NJ, MN, NB, DE or NJ can help supply RI. Spread the word. www.ribc.org/donate-blood/

The core parts of it don't have to be that lavish. I don't see Biden needing the kind of grandeur on display at the Reagan or Kennedy libraries.

I've spent much time at presidential libraries and can occasionally see some merit to the system. At established libraries, researchers benefit from a wealth of archivist expertise. The better libraries offer research grants to early career scholars. But predicating it all on fundraising is crazy.

I am absolutely gutted to hear that Dr. William (Bill) Burr of the @nsarchive.bsky.social passed away yesterday. Bill was so kind, so generous, and so important to the field of nuclear history. And he was just a great guy on top of everything else. It is a huge loss.

The historian and @shafrhistorians.bsky.social member Bill Burr died yesterday after a long fight with cancer. For 35 years he was a senior analyst at the @nsarchive.bsky.social, but this hardly begins to describe his importance to US Foreign Relations historians. nsarchive.gwu.edu/about/staff/...

What are goalposts anyway and why keep them in just one place?

I hadn't pegged him as a font partisan. It's almost quirky.

The end of the Cold War was a heady time.

It's one of those shows that yields new details each time you revisit it.

Improbably, the best Christmas film is a Bret Easton Ellis adaptation.

Half off all the books in the Global America series!

Exactly 80 years ago this precise moment (8:40am Hamburg time, Nov. 30, 1945), German submarine commander Heinz-Wilhelm Eck and two of his former subordinates on the U-852 were shot by Allies in Hamburg for killing the survivors of a ship they had sunk. Pete Hagueseth needs to lawyer up immediately.

Forthcoming in February 2026, my new book Replaying the Second World War: Soviet Parallels and Inspirations for Russian Atrocities in the Russo-Ukrainian War, 2014-25, out with ibidem Press and distributed by Columbia University Press. cup.columbia.edu/book/replayi...

Nor is it a deal. Laundering it is a dubious choice.

Dispensing with the entire sequel trilogy would be fine.

30% off at Yale Press, including my book, Immigration + Apocalypse

Encountering the Peninsula Times Tribune in the archive:

Biggest case since Mabo.

So much of our current era can be explained by the fact that the national press is filled with idiots.

Something priceless was lost when we stopped using abstract codenames. (nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-boo...)

I have a strange hunch about his embassy of choice.

Legal limits on chapter length now

Against all odds, Boebert is victorious.

Please take a few minutes to read this beautiful tribute to our friend and scholar Dr. Lloyd Ambrosius. Dr. Jeanette Eileen Jones, who authored the tribute, is hosting a panel on his legacy at the OAH in Philadelphia. More information can be found at the link. blog.shgape.org/tribute-to-l...

No one in grad school warns you about all the weird inquiries you'll get in this business.

"He had this crazy idea about breeding pine trees."

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. A curtained AHA barn-space filled with interviews and people talking over each other. Double-digit US/World listings. Acknowledgment letters. All lost in time, like tears in the rain.

This is a disservice to Mac, Pete Thornton, and the Phoenix Foundation.

I refuse to link to something like this, but the Olivia Nuzzi glam blonde puffery posing as journalism on the display page of the nation's leading newspaper is a self-indictment.

Leave MacGyver out of this.

I chart how 60s' liberals' frustration with House minority rule in their own party led us to a different kind of minority rule now, unintentionally accelerated by Pelosi's iron grip as Speaker. Johnson's turned the strong speaker model into a WH appendage, so we need a new one

Happy news: My new book -- Humanitarianism: A Very Short Introduction -- now has a cover and is available for preorder! The book is a concise history of humanitarianism in an international and global perspective, from the 18th century to the present. More info here: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

It would be lovely if Virginia reformed its board system entirely. Youngkin appointees have disgraced the Board of Visitors – I'm not just talking about Bert Ellis. One only need look at UNC to see how a board can sabotage a system.

When a party leader of any type cannot wrangle their caucus to do or not do things in the best interest of the whole, factions emerge & chart their own path, that is fine, but it is a failure of leadership & a failure of collective action. Plain & simple. Past, present, & future. For any party.🗃️

There's no Kool-Aid like Senate Kool-Aid

Have we learned nothing from the 1919 World Series?

Since Trump took office, the US has killed 70 people in its campaign to allegedly defend the border from narcotics trafficking in the Caribbean. Over 28 years, the Berlin Wall caused 140 deaths taking into account not just the shootings but also the accidents, drownings and borders guard deaths.

A casino is probably on the drawing board.

We go live to Bill Ackman

No primary election in the history of the world is better than the one unfolding in George Clooney's head.

A thrilling World Series makes for a very long off season.