I spent the last week researching in the John le Carré archive at the Bodleian Library for my book "A Most Angry Man: John le Carré and the War on Terror." This draft foreword for A Most Wanted Man certainly seems relevant today. I wish his infamous anti-Americanism wasn't so prescient.

As many are already pointing out, Fiona Hill testified in 2019 that Russia communicated to Trump via different channels that it wanted to trade Ukraine for Venezuela. See pages 58-9, 362-4 of the actual doc's page numbers d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2019/...

David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, from April 2001: “The new American realism, which is nothing other than gross corporate power cloaked in demagogy, means one thing only: that America will put America first in everything. . . I think the sooner Britain and Europe wake up to that fact, the better.”

I'm beginning to think the FIFA Peace Prize is fraudulent.

For all my intelligence studies and "war on terror" friends, I hope you like this take on Homeland. “All I See Is Damage” Homeland, the Covert Sphere, and the End of the War on Terror - Crim - The Journal of Popular Culture - Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

What is a "legitimate business need"? Is research into the past now completely verboten?

I'm attending my first SHAFR conference in DC this week. Whatever will they talk about to fill the time? Our roundtable reunites some of us who met at the USHMM last summer to workshop projects on the US military and the Holocaust. Hope to see some of you there.

I'm excited to announce my new position as the Cohen Chair for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College. I've admired the unique HGS program at Keene and the affiliate Cohen Institute for a long time. Let's collaborate!

I'm excited to participate in this event about Ft. Hunt's WWII history, specifically the role German and Austrian Jewish refugees played in interrogating prominent POWs and Project Paperclip scientists. librarycalendar.fairfaxcounty.gov/event/14294542

Dude, read a book . . .

New addition Book: Spies, Culture, and Society: Coming in from the Cold by Simon Willmetts, Constant Hijzen (published 01-02-2026) http://press.georgetown.edu/Book/Spies-Culture-and-Society

Cover reveal for People without History are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust, forthcoming in four months with @uoftpress.bsky.social Beautiful design by Filip Kraus; the faces correspond with six of the chapters told in the book.

I'm glad I helped with this piece written by a fellow historian. www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...

This amazing resource is now digital and searchable. Great work by some dedicated historians. muse.jhu.edu/encyclopedia...

McBride was my professor at JMU early in his career. He was why I wanted to be a historian. Good to know he's the same cantankerous, quality character guy I remember as an undergraduate.

Ok German Studies folks, I hope I'll see many of you in DC in the Crystal City Palace this Fall after some years away. I got my acceptance today for: "Hamburg is a guilty city." John le Carré, A Most Wanted Man, and Germany’s War on Terror

Next week I'm speaking on the special role emigres played as interrogators and war crimes investigators during the occupation period. Many emigres returned to their hometowns, knew their captives, and learned about the fate of their families while "on the job." www.lynchburg.edu/history-prof...

Umm....what?

🤣🤣🤣

My feed is a torrent of these horrific letters gutting a generation of Humanities scholarship. And the personal toll on people whose livelihoods depend on this funding often gets overlooked. What do you do with schedules made, hiring freezes everywhere? The cruelty was always the point.

This is just so profoundly depressing.

Won't someone please think of the poor spies operating against the US? They're being made redundant by gross incompetence.

19 books, articles, chapters, even book reviews. I made $5,000 in royalties over two decades to become fodder for Skynet.

"We protected the strong against the weak, and we perfected the art of the public lie . . . And we scarcely paused to ask ourselves how much longer we could defend our society by these means and remain a society worth defending." - George Smiley, The Secret Pilgrim (1990)

These are amazing.

His master's voice . . .

I'm excited for my first Society for Intelligence History Conference at the always amazing Spy Museum. It's hard to underestimate the influence John le Carré has on the culture of intelligence, real and imagined.

I think about Sam Esmail's Leave the World Behind a lot recently. This is basically the plot.

Auschwitz was at the end of a long process. It did not start from gas chambers. This hatred was gradually developed by humans. From ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

I edited this manuscript by Walter Jessel, a German Jewish emigre who served in the US Army. He returned to Frankfurt in 1945 and tracked down his old classmates. He asked the same questions. Most wallowed in self-pity and played the victim. www.academicstudiespress.com/9781618116529/

My review of Richard Frankel's comparative history of antisemitism in Germany and the US. Highly recommend! www.tandfonline.com/eprint/9TWZR...

My holiday reading. You might expect it to be filled with meandering rants about 70s films, and you'd be right. But, it's very entertaining. Smart, funny, relevatory.

The ITS is invaluable!

Tis the season...

Well they say a picture is worth a thousand words, this is spot on. Do not obey in advance!

I co-created and co-host Lies Agreed Upon, a podcast about history and pop culture. Our three seasons are on the New Books Network. Catch up over the holidays! newbooksnetwork.com/category/up-...

The world's reaction to every personnel decision thus far. "Dr." Oz!!!!!

John le Carre not happy with an early draft of A Most Wanted Man. I never related to an author more.

I'm really proud to be a part of this edited collection. The BEST editors. www.bloomsbury.com/us/haunted-h...

I made a starter pack for German History!!! Please repost, and comment if you'd like to be added! :) go.bsky.app/QMHzmog

Life imitates art.

I'm writing a book about John le Carre's post-9/11 fiction and found the original title for Absolute Friends (2003) in his archive. I love this passage that never made it in the final draft. As I get older, it speaks to me.