David Vine

Background

About David Vine

I am the author of The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State (University of California Press, 2020), which is the third in a trilogy of books about war and peace, US foreign policy, and human rights. The United States of War was a finalist for the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prize for History. The prior books in this trilogy are Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press, 2009) and Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (Metropolitan/Holt, 2015). More broadly, my work focuses on issues including inequality, social movements, forced displacement, refugees, US military bases abroad, race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, and nationalism. AU students and I have worked together in the AU Public Anthropology Clinic to assist social movements and organizations working on issues related to displacement, war and militarization, environmental damage, and refugees, among others. To learn about the Public Anthropology Clinic, visit: With the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, I helped write and compile Militarization: A Reader (Duke UP, 2019) and the Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual, or Notes on Demilitarizing American Society (Prickly Paradigm, 2009). My other writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, Mother Jones, Politico, Foreign Policy in Focus, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and International Migration, among others. I have also conducted research about gentrification in Brooklyn, NY, environmental refugees, homelessness and mental illness, and DC-area basketball. I was previously, briefly, a dancing waiter. For links to my most recent writing, upcoming and past speaking events, and more information, see and