Kim A. Wagner
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
- "I do not know that they were innocent" Reading perpetrator testimonies is exhausting...
- This lazy and conceptually inept remake of Coppola's 1992-film reminds me of the Sherlock Holmes spoof with Will Ferrell that made it abundantly clear that the writer/director was completely unfamiliar with the source-material. Or my students who only knew 'The Jungle Book' from the 2016 CGI movie 😑
- Just found a real 'both sides'-take on the My Lai Massacre from 1989...
- Reposted by Kim A. Wagner“We should confront this history and not dismiss it as shameful. Because much of the past is shameful, and we disagree with many things our ancestors did, but we still need to talk about it and learn from it.” www.eldiario.es/internaciona...
- Reposted by Kim A. WagnerCold on this morning in 2019!
- My eldest son just shared this with me...
- For those who are interested: this photo was taken by Ron Haeberle at My Lai on March 16, 1968. The soldier is SP4 Fred W. Dustin, 3rd Platoon, Charlie Company, whose job it was to burn the houses in the village - the so-called zippo-squad - after the first two platoons had already swept through.
- Reposted by Kim A. WagnerAnother AI psychosis story. I think understanding genre would actually be helpful for people trying to make sense of LLM outputs. If you prompt it with cosmic / SF / paranoid ideas it will accept that genre premise in the tone of its responses futurism.com/artificial-i...
- Why AI is worse than useless - exhibit #1001
- Fascinating to see ICE invoke the trope of returning Vietnam veterans being spat at and vilified, while critics of ICE also draw on the Vietnam War when they compare the brutality to My Lai. Neither comparison is appropriate, of course...
- Reposted by Kim A. WagnerHappy 🇬🇧 UK pub day to THE CROWN’S SILENCE—a deeply researched narrative history of the monarchy’s centuries-long entanglement with slavery. This is the new history book the far right loathes. Please buy it b/c it’s important history but—also—it will really piss them off if it does well in the UK!!😉😘
- Let them eat AI...
- We want to make sure tutoring isn't the preserve of a lucky few, but accessible to every child who needs it. AI can help us do that. Safe, personalised, one-to-one learning support to help every child achieve and thrive. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...
- Reposted by Kim A. WagnerWe're thrilled to be welcoming legendary broadcaster Kate Adie to the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social for our 5th distinguished Hennessy Lecture. She'll discuss her life as a reporter and explore the challenges & paths ahead for journalism today. 16 Feb 6:30.Book here! www.qmul.ac.uk/mei/events/m...
- Weekend craft-project: hand-carved calligraphy on a small slab of cedarwood. And what does it say?...IYKYK
- Whatever did the Thugs do to deserve this?
- @schumer.senate.gov: “This is not border security. This is not law and order. This is chaos created at the top, and felt in so many of our neighborhoods.” “What ICE is doing state-sanctioned thuggery.”
- Don't make me tap the sign...
- Dear Americans - there are many historical parallels to what ICE is doing right now.The My Lai Massacre of 1968, during which US troops killed 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians and raped a number of women and young girls, is *not* one of them. Americans were not victims at My Lai - not then, not now.
- Just finished Han Kang's 'Human Acts', which is a truly remarkable - and devastating - book. As a child, I was in Gwangju shortly after the uprising and I vividly remember the graphic photographs of murdered students that were displayed at the bus station...
- Has there ever been a president who came out so strongly against the 2nd Amendment...?
- Personally, I love the fact that ICE has ruined the tacticool aesthetic for everyone forever...
- Reposted by Kim A. WagnerSouthwest Lumber Company mill pond Lincoln National Forest near Alamogordo, New Mexico E.S. Shipp, 1928
- If Orientalism was a person...
- And this is why we should never refer to killings, massacres or other atrocities as 'tragedies'. A 'tragedy' is an unfortunate but unavoidable event for which no-one is to blame - that is the definition. To call the inevitable result of deliberate policy a 'tragedy' is a denial and a whitewash...
- Looking forward to teaching my favourite module beginning tomorrow. Sadly, it won't be difficult to show the students why history is relevant...
- Turning perpetrators into victims has been an American specialty for more than half a century...
- We need to see this - and you need to look at it - because they're going to twist the narrative and tell us that it didn't happen. That's why.
- UPDATE: @dropsitenews.com has obtained the very graphic video from the lady in the pink coat, which shows ICE executing yet another person in broad daylight:
- The footage that has so far been released shows this is pure fabrication - that story is going to be really difficult to walk back...
- DHS released a statement claiming that “an agent fired defensive shots” after an individual approached CBP agents with a gun and “violently resisted” when they attempted to disarm him. DHS claims that he “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” x.com/DHSgov/statu...
- So what are we gonna get? Complete denial and defamation of the victim or a single officer dismissed and denounced as a 'rotten apple'? My money's on the former...
- It can't be a coincidence that this is all happening at a time when the Vietnam War has been reduced to a silly cliché in popular culture...
- They watched 'Apocalypse Now' and thought Kilgore was the hero...
- Reposted by Kim A. WagnerTimes review dismisses my book as crass & labels me an American “sucker”—but it’s by the same conservative reviewer who hates books focused on the legacies of empire & slavery, & who wildly misrepresented the excellent collection edited by @alanlester.bsky.social Haters gonna hate! So it begins!
