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I could not be happier with the critical reception of Our Germans: Project Paperclip and the National Security State since its release in early 2018. Reviews in the Journal of American History, American Historical Review, Intelligence and National Security...

When I started writing Manufacturing Advantage: War, the State, and the Origins of American Industry, 1776–1848, it had nothing to do with manufacturing. It actually started as a study of piracy and US-Spanish relations during the Latin American independence...

As a writer, it’s rare to feel that a story is destined for you. I felt that way with my first book, Ginseng, the Divine Root, about forests and a secretive subculture around a medicinal plant from American forests that for over two centuries has been exported...

Many people have asked me why I wrote the book and why I chose the title, The American Lab. Much of the motivation arose out of the events associated with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s 50th anniversary in 2002, the last major event that I...

As a political historian, my initial objective when writing Hydrocarbon Nation was simply to investigate the role that fossil fuels have played in influencing America’s political and economic advance. My sense was that although most environmentalists view...

Wernher von Braun’s rocket team’s journey from captivity in Germany to their brilliant “second act” with the US Army and eventually NASA began with a series of debriefings with the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) in a ski chalet near Garmisch...