My work is mostly published in The New York Times, where I have been a staff writer since 2008. This page on its website lists the most recent articles in which I had a byline or a contributor note.
A special project I undertook about culture war and the history of the relationship between my hometown — Fort Wayne, Indiana — and the Miami Tribe, which controlled the region before the 1794 conquest of what is now the Midwest by General “Mad” Anthony Wayne:
“When the Culture Wars Hit Fort Wayne,” Politico Magazine, July 31, 2020
I had some unused research from that project — about a massive tribal cemetery under a neighborhood just north of downtown Fort Wayne, which has been almost literally covered up — in this piece published by my hometown newspaper:
“Buried Concerns,” The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, Aug. 16, 2020
I am occasionally asked to write book review-essays by a variety of publications:
“A Terrible Mistake,” The New York Review of Books, Sept. 19, 2024. (The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll)
“Mission Creep: What are the lessons of the United States’ 20-year war in Afghanistan?” The Nation, March 21, 2022. (The Afghanistan Papers by Craig Whitlock)
“The Rise of Private Spies: What happens when online investigators and detectives-for-hire take on intelligence work?” The New Republic, May 10, 2021. (We Are Bellingcat: Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News by Eliot Higgins; Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies by Barry Meier)
“Spy Chief,” The New York Times, Oct. 7, 2020. (Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies, at Home and Abroad By John O. Brennan)
“The Blacked-Out Line: Nicholson Baker in the Labyrinths of American Secrecy,” The Nation, October 6, 2020. (Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act by Nicholas Baker)
“Eyewitness to Chaos,” The New York Times, Oct. 28, 2019. (Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon With Secretary Mattis By Guy M. Snodgrass)
“Controlling the Chief,” The New York Review of Books, Feb. 8, 2018. (The Pentagon’s Wars: The Military’s Undeclared War Against America’s Presidents by Mark Perry)
“The Terror Hydra,” The New York Times, June 9, 2017. (Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State By Ali Soufan)
“Was Snowden a Russian Agent?” The New York Review of Books, February 9, 2017. (How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft by Edward Jay Epstein; Snowden, a film directed by Oliver Stone)
“General Hayden’s Offensive,” The New York Review of Books, May 26, 2016. (Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror by Michael V. Hayden)
“Glued to the Screen,” The New York Times, March 6, 2016. (Movie Freak: My Life Watching Movies By Owen Gleiberman)