Category Archives: book

“Make the treaty, Sir! . . . I know your country. I know all classes of people there. They want peace, Sir. They pant for it.”

Make the treaty, Sir! . . . I know your country. I know all classes of people there. They want peace, Sir. They pant for it. … Instructions or no instructions, you are bound to do it.”

On Reality Winner

Last night’s 60 Minutes segment hit all the notes: Winner’s service, her awards, even her moral injury; ” I was starting to see in the news that our mission had a very high civilian casualty rating,” she told Scott Pelley. Winner was honest about what imprisonment did to her and clear about why she brokeContinue reading “On Reality Winner”

The wrong kind of dissent

Last fall, I was annoyed that the Oath Keepers were getting so much press while tens of thousands of others were showing up against them. From a news standpoint I guess I was wrong; but so much of the coverage has seemed bedazzled by the military cred these guys claim instead of calling them out repeatedly for the racists they are, Giglio only mentions the Southern Poverty Law Center in reference to the fact that the Keepers’ database was leaked there — not why SPLC finds them so terrifying. And former SEAL Adam Newbold, who stayed behind when his fellow Oath Keepers invaded the Capitol, got to spew his hatred to TV cameras and get profiled in this fawning New York Times piece, which unrolls his growing up in bucolic Lisbon, Ohio without noting that the area was long a hotbed for the Klan and doesn’t bother to explore Newbold’s Facebook networks,

A week later, still can’t believe this actually happened. Still so much to do.

Writing this exactly a week after the event above. I’m still amazed and honored that Hochschild agreed to do it, and the result was kind of a blast. I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome of the book into the world. The video shows most of the Zoom event, though not the Q&A andContinue reading “A week later, still can’t believe this actually happened. Still so much to do.”

It’s showtime, folks.

Join Chris Lombardi & Adam Hochschild for a conversation on writing narrative nonfiction & the history of dissent in the U.S. armed forces. And no doubt we’ll talk about current soldier-dissent, from the National Guard troops refusing domestic deployment to the veterans mobilized to protect Black lives.

About the Book (and this site)

Before the U.S. Constitution had even been signed, soldiers and new veterans protested. Dissent, the hallowed expression of disagreement and refusal to comply with the government’s wishes, has a long history in the United States. Soldier dissenters, outraged by the country’s wars or egregious violations in conduct, speak out and change U.S. politics, social welfareContinue reading “About the Book (and this site)”

“The present is a moving target.”

I wrote that years ago when I was first drafting the book’s final chapter, as the “Bradley Manning” story became the complex reality that is Chelsea Manning, as new dissent appeared daily and what had seemed pretty black and white under George W. Bush moulted into a sinister purple glow under Obama. Now, this second,Continue reading ““The present is a moving target.””

Leo Tolstoy, Phil Ochs, Joan of Arc and other ghosts

On Twitter awhile back, I saw a challenge: “Describe your job in four words. I answered: “I talk to ghosts.” I mostly meant as a gonzo-historian, something I specialized in long before the Internet : the smell of microfilm rolls of decades-old newspapers still in my nose. Now, give a woman JSTOR ass and goodContinue reading “Leo Tolstoy, Phil Ochs, Joan of Arc and other ghosts”