Excerpt
List of Excerpt articles
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John Ackah Blay-Miezah smokes a cigar in the London office of the Oman Ghana Trust Fund in the 1980s. The Man Who Conned the World
How one of the greatest scam artists of all time used Ghana’s colonial past to get rich.
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A U.S. soldier sets fire to a building during the My Lai massacre Confusion and Ambition Caused the My Lai Atrocities
A rare combination of failures led to an infamous massacre.
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A sticker featuring U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden and partially reading "asylum" is seen on the pavement of a Berlin street. The Song and Dance of American Secrecy
Espionage law hasn’t changed much since William Howard Taft—yet recent presidents have wielded it as a cudgel more than ever before.
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Trump's silhouette is seen from the back. He's walking toward a big illuminated U.S. flag. How the U.S. Created Its Own Reality
Historian Heather Cox Richardson charts the roots of 21st-century disinformation—and how American democracy began to falter.
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Dozens of people have dinner at a rooftop restaurant at night with the water and lit-up high rises of the Shanghai skyline behind them. How to Get Chinese Elites to Support Democracy
It may be in their own self-interest.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un talk before a meeting in the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Korea on June 30, 2019. North Korean Talks Collapsed but Didn’t Fail
I helped negotiate the Trump-Kim meeting. Real peace is still possible.
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Twitter's sign is seen partially removed in San Francisco, California on July 24, 2023. How China Trolls Flooded Twitter
Beijing has learned to use Russian-style disinformation.
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A man wheels his bicycle along a railroad track in Hiroshima. Around him is the rubble of trees and buildings destroyed by the atomic bomb. The Bomb Was Horrifying. The Alternatives Would Have Been Worse.
Historical records show that dropping atomic bombs was the least bad option.
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Children attend an official initiation ceremony for the youth organization Young Pioneers in Moscow's Red Square. Russia’s Frighteningly Fascist Youth
A new generation of Russians glorifies war, death, and Vladimir Putin.
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Paramilitary police officers march past the portrait of communist leader Mao Zedong on Tiananmen Gate Mao’s Legacy Is a Dangerous Topic in China
Discussing the Cultural Revolution has become increasingly risky.
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security guard stands outside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China How American Journalists Watched China’s COVID-19 Crisis Unfold
The pandemic’s outbreak brought rare reporting freedoms.
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A group of school boys displaced by World War II bombardments pose with CARE (Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe) packages from the United States in Belgium in 1947. How Truman Sold Americans on Going Hungry
In 1947, the United States sacrificed for the sake of a starving Europe.
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A large screen shows a news report about Chinese President Xi Jinping. China Wants Your Attention, Please
Beijing’s massive expansion of state media hasn’t quite worked as planned. But watch out for Xinhua’s growing global deals.
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U.S. President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an executive order on the economy in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. How the U.S.-Chinese Technology War Is Changing the World
Washington’s crackdown on technology access is creating a new kind of global conflict.
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This article is adapted from Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin by Andrew S. Weiss with illustrations by Brian “Box” Brown (Macmillan Publishers, 272 pp., $28.99, November 2022). How Putin Came to Fear ‘Color Revolutions’
A new graphic novel reexamines the Russian leader’s biography—with lessons for the present.
