Welcome to Doomsday Scenario

Thanks for joining me at Doomsday Scenario! This is my regular email newsletter focused on the mix of national security, politics, and history that has long been my beat as a journalist — an attempt to answer the question: Are things really as bad as they seem?

This newsletter comes out about twice a month and features a mix of history, technology, geopolitics, cybersecurity—and a whole lot of reading recommendations. I write regularly about threats to democracy and the struggle against authoritarianism, both at home and abroad.

If you’re signing up for this newsletter, you probably know my background, but in case you don’t know, I’ve spent nearly two decades covering politics, technology, and national security, and am now recognized as one of the nation’s most prolific and wide-ranging journalists and historians. My award-winning work—including a half-dozen books on topics ranging from presidential campaigns, Watergate, 9/11, cybersecurity, the U.S. government’s Cold War Doomsday plans, as well as dozens of magazine articles, essays, podcasts, and documentaries—uses history to explain the story of today, illuminating where we’ve been as a country and where we’re headed as a world. 

I’m the former editor of POLITICO Magazine, a writer at publications ranging from the  New York Times to Esquire to the Washington Post, and a current contributor to WIRED and CNN, among other platforms.

(A view of my desk mid-book writing.)

If you’re just learning about my work, here are some good places to start:

• Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Check out my bestselling books: 

  • WATERGATE: A NEW HISTORY

  • THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: AN ORAL HISTORY OF 9/11

  • RAVEN ROCK, about the US government’s Doomsday plans. 

  • If you’d like a signed or inscribed copy of WATERGATE, go here. 

  • My next book is about UFOs and will be published in Fall 2023 – because you’re on this list, you’ll have the scoop on it before anyone else! 

• If you’re an audiophile, try my podcast LONG SHADOW about the lingering questions around 9/11 (the second season will be coming in spring 2023, stay tuned!) or dive into the audiobook of my 9/11 oral history, THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY, which won the industry’s 2021 Best Audiobook of the Year (beating Michelle Obama!).

• If you’re an e-reader, download my e-book, “Angel is Airborne,” about JFK’s final flight from Dallas on November 22, 1963, or my “speculative nonfiction” Scribd novella “Dragonfire,” about a terror plot after 9/11 that almost changed history.

• I give 30-40 public speeches a year covering topics like Watergate, 9/11, and modern politics and the history of the “American Dream.” If you’re interested in booking me to speak, email [email protected].

• I specialize in writing oral histories, and you might like my article marking the 10th anniversary of the bin Laden raid or my history of March 11, 2020, the day the world changed.

• I love making reading recommendations, and you can browse through 101 “Top 5” lists I’ve done here, a series I call #GMGReads—it featured categories like “Biographies of People You’ll Wish You Knew” to Abraham Lincoln to books on faith. You’ll get some more #GMGReads here in the newsletter from time to time. Want some recommendations? Looking for something to read? Reply to this email and ask me for some! !

Anyway, thanks again for signing up, and I look forward to staying in touch. Email me anytime, right here! This goes right to me — really!