This February marks the 100 year anniversary of an event that transformed Europe, brought the US into WWI, and nearly…
Issue 000: Pre-March 2017
Sebastian Junger with WBT’s Drew Pham on “Tribe”
How can a society so disconnected from its wars welcome back its fighting women and men? What do we lose when we priv…
Hierarchy and Americans, A Long Love Affair
We have leaders, in the USA, it's always been that way. I don’t believe in some magical, fairyland communal…
The Long March Ahead: A Veteran’s Place in Resistance
The day after the election felt all too familiar. It felt like 9/11. Then, as now, that day only promised a long road…
The Sellout by Paul Beatty: A Review
Shortly after Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Booker Prize was awarded to fellow American Paul Beatt…
Against NATO: The Other Side of the Argument
Since 1989-1991 when every country in the USSR or the Warsaw Pact (save Russia) jumped ship at the earliest oppo…
Why Does the Universe Exist and Other Things We Cannot Know
Philosophy used to be the king of science. Hard to imagine now, but it’s true. Over the last few centuries, how…
Last Week This Week 9-25-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
The Italian Front in WWI: Bad Tactics, Worse Leadership, and Pointless Sacrifice
During this ongoing centenary of the First World War, interest in “The War to End All Wars” has returned, especially …
Punk! Last Week This Week: 9/11 Music Edition
On 9/11–Punk, Protest, and Witness: WBT Editors Choose Their Jams There was a chance, in 1991, for the US to ta…
Crazy Horse and the Legacy of the American Indian Genocide
Recent news articles about coal pollution in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, and protests against new …
Last Week This Week 8-28-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
World War Two Never Ended
World War Two never ended. It sounds like the plot of a dystopian science fiction novel, right? Either the bad guys w…
Dunkirk: the Bravest British Retreat
Whatever one might think about the United Kingdom’s recent behavior toward Europe—its antagonism toward the European …
Last Week This Week 6-7-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
Last Week This Week 7-24-16: Donald Trump Edition
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
On Plato, Donald Trump, and the Ship of State
Plato’s most famous work and the foundational text of political philosophy is the Republic. Written in the form…
Last Week This Week: 7-17-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
E.O. Wilson on Biology as Politics, Culture, and Human Nature
One of the most illustrious living scientists, E.O. Wilson, is still active and writing great books well into his ninth …
Each Soldier a Thread
The violence that reached our shores left me at a loss—every attempt to conceptualize these tragedies failed to…
The Dangerous Rise and Impending Collapse of Homo Sapiens
“If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on earth would end. If all human…
Last Week This Week: 6-26-16 (Brexit and Michael Herr)
Since the last time we conducted a wrapup, the following has occurred: NATO finished the largest joint exercises in o…
In Laurent Bécue-Renard’s Of Men and War War Is Not Tragic But Embarrassing
In The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell argued that every war is ironic because every war is worse than…
Republican Senator’s Ill-Conceived Plan to Block Vegetarian Options in the Military
Across the United States and most of the developed world, there is a growing awareness of the problems caused by over…
Scrabble Can Build or Break Friendship
My Sunday morning began with a Wall Street Journal article about Scrabble. The story, which featured scrappy young Ni…
Last Week This Week 6-5-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
The Burn Pit Registry
It started with a cough none of us could get rid of. Sure I smoked. Lots of us smoked but the non-smokers had it too,…
Last Week This Week 5-29-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
Last Week This Week 5-22-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
The Bloodiest American War Many Americans Have Never Heard Of
The title, which I selected myself, is a trick. Most citizens of the United States of America know their war his…
Last Week This Week 5-15-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
Last Week This Week 5-8-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
David Rieff’s In Praise of Forgetting: Historical Memory and Its Ironies
In At The Mind’s Limits, a series of essays reflecting on his time spent in the Nazi concentration camps, Jean …
Last Week This Week 5-1-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
Last Week This Week 4-24-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
How to Mock a Dictator (and Get Away With It)
The German government, a coalition of Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats and the center-left Soci…
Last Week This Week 4-17-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
Not Quite Ready to Die in the Anthropocene
(Originally published at The Hooded Utilitarian) The recent Paris Climate Conference has been called the last best ch…
Last Week This Week 4-10-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : s…
Rise of the Robots – Downfall of Humans?
What purpose does our economy serve—why do we seek greater profit? What does profit do for an individual, an in…
Week in Review 4-3-16
Wrath /ræθ/ noun 1 : strong…
Wrath-Bearing Tree Review 3/27/16
"But I have always held that, if he who bases his hopes on human nature is a fool, he who gives up in the f…
The Enduring Legacy of Alexander Hamilton
It has come to my attention that there exists an award-winning Broadway musical based on the life of Alexander Hamilt…
The Unusually Literal World of Bowe Bergdahl
Military hyperbole is at the heart of Serial’s second season. Sarah Koenig has gambled that she can take a simp…
Proposal for Primary Reform: Demote Iowa and New Hampshire
Many Americans have been noticing, with more frequency, the inconvenient truth that our democratic system, by design,…
Bernie Sanders Wins in Iowa!
Photo Credit: J. David Ake, AP. Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife, Jane. Regardless of what the official results might…
A Response to A Defense of Moderate, American Socialism
This essay is a short response to the great recent analysis on Socialism in America by my colleague on this…
Wrath of UCMJ: Against Crushing Bowe Bergdahl
Americans have become jaded by injustice. Wealthy and elitist citizens like Robert Durst and John du Pont bully, rape…
Bryan Hurt: The Next Ambassador to France
In a literary culture full of “McPoems” and hand-wringing over the homogenization of literature because of a supposed…
Star Wars: The Force Awakens–It Will Be Watched
By Adrian Bonenberger I wrote a long essay about Lindsay Graham’s candidacy a few months ago, when Craig Whitlock br…