Kim A. Wagner
@kimatiwagner.bsky.social
Historian of empire, violence and atrocity photography - currently writing about the My Lai Massacre.
Latest book on Bud Dajo:
'Massacre in the Clouds - An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History' (PublicAffairs, 2024)
London - Wylie Agency
Latest book on Bud Dajo:
'Massacre in the Clouds - An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History' (PublicAffairs, 2024)
London - Wylie Agency
Pinned
'There was a map of Vietnam on the wall of my apartment in Saigon and some nights, coming back late to the city, I'd lie out on my bed and look at it, too tired to do anything more than just get my boots off.'
Michael Herr, Dispatches
Finally got an old French map of my own...
Michael Herr, Dispatches
Finally got an old French map of my own...
What are we gonna get first - a Peter Berg-directed action movie about the daring raid to capture the Venezuelan president - 'Mission: Maduro' - or a film called 'American Hero' about an ICE-agent traumatised by putting too many kids in handcuffs directed by Clint Eastwood?
January 5, 2026 at 6:28 PM
What are we gonna get first - a Peter Berg-directed action movie about the daring raid to capture the Venezuelan president - 'Mission: Maduro' - or a film called 'American Hero' about an ICE-agent traumatised by putting too many kids in handcuffs directed by Clint Eastwood?
Trust Trump to make this diasporic Dane (me) feel something vaguely resembling patriotism for the first time in my life...😡
January 5, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Trust Trump to make this diasporic Dane (me) feel something vaguely resembling patriotism for the first time in my life...😡
It's only an invasion if we say it is - otherwise it's just a sparkling police action...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why wasn't congressional authorization necessary?
RUBIO: It wasn't necessary because this was not an invasion. We didn't occupy a country. This was an arrest operation.
RUBIO: It wasn't necessary because this was not an invasion. We didn't occupy a country. This was an arrest operation.
January 4, 2026 at 7:10 PM
It's only an invasion if we say it is - otherwise it's just a sparkling police action...
Sunrise at My Lai, March 2025.
I took the picture at the exact spot where the photo of the bodies in the rice paddy was taken by Ron Haeberle on March 16, 1968.
I took the picture at the exact spot where the photo of the bodies in the rice paddy was taken by Ron Haeberle on March 16, 1968.
January 4, 2026 at 1:13 PM
Sunrise at My Lai, March 2025.
I took the picture at the exact spot where the photo of the bodies in the rice paddy was taken by Ron Haeberle on March 16, 1968.
I took the picture at the exact spot where the photo of the bodies in the rice paddy was taken by Ron Haeberle on March 16, 1968.
👇🏻🔥👇🏻🔥👇🏻🔥
So clever of US, UK and European universities, with ample encouragement from their governments, to have been closing down Area Studies, History, Languages and Politics & International Relations programmes, so clearly irrelevant to the world in the second half of the 21st century.
A key question is ‘whether Trump’s appetite for military adventurism will continue to spread. He has advertised designs on Canada, Panama, Greenland and the Gaza Strip. On Saturday, he implied Mexico was also in his sights’
Quick insight from @edwardluce.bsky.social
as.ft.com/r/f047cbcd-9...
Quick insight from @edwardluce.bsky.social
as.ft.com/r/f047cbcd-9...
January 4, 2026 at 1:00 PM
👇🏻🔥👇🏻🔥👇🏻🔥
I've recently made an effort to read more for pleasure so as not to think about research all the time - but judging from the pile of books next to my bed I have not entirely succeeded...
January 4, 2026 at 10:35 AM
I've recently made an effort to read more for pleasure so as not to think about research all the time - but judging from the pile of books next to my bed I have not entirely succeeded...
Operation Just Because
January 3, 2026 at 2:55 PM
Operation Just Because
Who else is old enough to remember Panama '89?
January 3, 2026 at 11:07 AM
Who else is old enough to remember Panama '89?
Nation with time-honoured penchant for gunboat diplomacy doing gunboat diplomacy...
January 3, 2026 at 10:53 AM
Nation with time-honoured penchant for gunboat diplomacy doing gunboat diplomacy...
Working with maps to reconstruct a massacre seems to be a recurrent feature in my research...
January 2, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Working with maps to reconstruct a massacre seems to be a recurrent feature in my research...
Your daily reminder that an atrocity is not simply constituted by physical acts of violence but also by the way it is subsequently justified, covered up or deliberately misnamed. The refusal to acknowledge atrocity, in the past as much as the present, is in itself a form of violence. #WoundedKnee
December 30, 2025 at 12:29 PM
Your daily reminder that an atrocity is not simply constituted by physical acts of violence but also by the way it is subsequently justified, covered up or deliberately misnamed. The refusal to acknowledge atrocity, in the past as much as the present, is in itself a form of violence. #WoundedKnee
Reposted by Kim A. Wagner
Today you're going to see the images of my ancestors dead and frozen in the snow in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre that took place today 135 years ago.
This is what Chief Big Foot looked like when he was alive, because we're people before we're corpses white people can propaganize.
This is what Chief Big Foot looked like when he was alive, because we're people before we're corpses white people can propaganize.
December 29, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Today you're going to see the images of my ancestors dead and frozen in the snow in the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre that took place today 135 years ago.
This is what Chief Big Foot looked like when he was alive, because we're people before we're corpses white people can propaganize.
This is what Chief Big Foot looked like when he was alive, because we're people before we're corpses white people can propaganize.
Reading about wandering souls in Vietnam and didn't expect diasporic academics to be singled out like this...
From the poem by Nguyễn Du.
From the poem by Nguyễn Du.
December 29, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reading about wandering souls in Vietnam and didn't expect diasporic academics to be singled out like this...
From the poem by Nguyễn Du.
From the poem by Nguyễn Du.
Reposted by Kim A. Wagner
"We're a culture of enormous violence."
"So why do you keep doing the work?"
"You can't have a country that does that. That's why I've been sort of on the warpath ever since. You can't just have a country that does that - and looks the other way. If there's any mantra to what I do, that's it."
"So why do you keep doing the work?"
"You can't have a country that does that. That's why I've been sort of on the warpath ever since. You can't just have a country that does that - and looks the other way. If there's any mantra to what I do, that's it."
December 27, 2025 at 9:15 AM
"We're a culture of enormous violence."
"So why do you keep doing the work?"
"You can't have a country that does that. That's why I've been sort of on the warpath ever since. You can't just have a country that does that - and looks the other way. If there's any mantra to what I do, that's it."
"So why do you keep doing the work?"
"You can't have a country that does that. That's why I've been sort of on the warpath ever since. You can't just have a country that does that - and looks the other way. If there's any mantra to what I do, that's it."
The documentary about Seymour Hersh, 'Cover Up', is available on Netflix from today (Dec 26). Here are my initial thoughts on the parts that concern the My Lai Massacre. 1/
December 26, 2025 at 12:50 PM
The documentary about Seymour Hersh, 'Cover Up', is available on Netflix from today (Dec 26). Here are my initial thoughts on the parts that concern the My Lai Massacre. 1/
There is one piece of evidence that's never really mentioned in 'The Stringer' - images are clearly numbered on film-roll and it should have been fairly straightforward to determine the sequence and whether different photos were taken on the same roll or not.
Or maybe I'm missing something...
Or maybe I'm missing something...
December 25, 2025 at 1:12 PM
There is one piece of evidence that's never really mentioned in 'The Stringer' - images are clearly numbered on film-roll and it should have been fairly straightforward to determine the sequence and whether different photos were taken on the same roll or not.
Or maybe I'm missing something...
Or maybe I'm missing something...
Watched 'The Stringer' last night - the forensic evidence is compelling and shows how unlikely it is that Nick Ut could have taken 'Napalm Girl'. The framing of the documentary is not entirely convincing, though, and in places the hammy sentimentality threatens to undermine the larger project.
December 25, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Watched 'The Stringer' last night - the forensic evidence is compelling and shows how unlikely it is that Nick Ut could have taken 'Napalm Girl'. The framing of the documentary is not entirely convincing, though, and in places the hammy sentimentality threatens to undermine the larger project.
The real issue here is that people mean different things when they say 'military history' - I study war, violence and atrocity but I am *not* a military historian and I wouldn't want to be mistaken for one. If you ask the same questions as military educators do, we are not the same...
We don’t teach military history at Princeton.
For a while Jim McPherson and John Murrin did a great “war and society” course, but even then it was a seminar with a dozen students.
For a while Jim McPherson and John Murrin did a great “war and society” course, but even then it was a seminar with a dozen students.
I don’t know how things are at Harvard, where Hankins is, but I can tell you that military history is popular, but not uniquely so, at my public university.
December 24, 2025 at 4:25 PM
The real issue here is that people mean different things when they say 'military history' - I study war, violence and atrocity but I am *not* a military historian and I wouldn't want to be mistaken for one. If you ask the same questions as military educators do, we are not the same...
The misrepresentation of the My Lai Massacre begins with the name itself: My Lai 4 was the American designation of a village that the locals referred to as Thuan Yen or Tu Cung, and today as Son My. 'My Lai' meant nothing to the Vietnamese who lived there, and 'Pinkville' was somewhere else entirely
December 24, 2025 at 12:00 PM
The misrepresentation of the My Lai Massacre begins with the name itself: My Lai 4 was the American designation of a village that the locals referred to as Thuan Yen or Tu Cung, and today as Son My. 'My Lai' meant nothing to the Vietnamese who lived there, and 'Pinkville' was somewhere else entirely
Staring in historian of Western imperialism...
Greenland Envoy Gov. Jeff Landry: "Look, the United States has always been a welcoming party. We don't go in there trying to conquer anybody and trying to take over anybody's country. We say, 'Listen. We represent liberty. We represented economic strength. We represent protection.'"
December 23, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Staring in historian of Western imperialism...
The AI discourse is deeply tiresome - people who have never carried out original research insisting that scholars with decades of training are just being stubborn by refusing to drink the Kool-Aid.
Show me how AI can materially improve our historical analysis and understanding or shut up...
Show me how AI can materially improve our historical analysis and understanding or shut up...
December 22, 2025 at 11:04 AM
The AI discourse is deeply tiresome - people who have never carried out original research insisting that scholars with decades of training are just being stubborn by refusing to drink the Kool-Aid.
Show me how AI can materially improve our historical analysis and understanding or shut up...
Show me how AI can materially improve our historical analysis and understanding or shut up...
This old interview with a survivor from My Lai hits differently.
I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to retell and relive a deeply traumatising experience over and over again - for 60 years.
I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to retell and relive a deeply traumatising experience over and over again - for 60 years.
December 20, 2025 at 9:24 AM
This old interview with a survivor from My Lai hits differently.
I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to retell and relive a deeply traumatising experience over and over again - for 60 years.
I can only imagine what it must feel like to have to retell and relive a deeply traumatising experience over and over again - for 60 years.
Establishing the exact number of victims is one of the most harrowing aspects of writing about atrocities. Numbers alone can never tell the full story and yet it is essential that we get it right since the first step of a cover up is inevitably to minimize the violence.
#MyLai1968
#MyLai1968
December 19, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Establishing the exact number of victims is one of the most harrowing aspects of writing about atrocities. Numbers alone can never tell the full story and yet it is essential that we get it right since the first step of a cover up is inevitably to minimize the violence.
#MyLai1968
#MyLai1968