In this addition of wardaddies we look at Gregory Peck and his very understated performance as Lt. Joe Clemons in Pork Chop Hill.

How John Wayne saved the US Marine Corps and set the template for Hollywood's 'wardaddies'.

The first in a series of videos about the ways in which Hollywood lies about who gets sent to war.

Serious Games and the Global War on Terror

A brief history of wargaming from the little blue tokens of the Prussian Kriegsspiel to the GI Joe sprites of Marine Doom.

Prompted by a weak rebuttal of David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs we look at the history of life insurance and the role played by 'actuarial science' in our understanding of human mortality.

Alex Leemon from Currently Speaking offers a slightly contrarian take on Australia's energy transition.

Nothing has done more to highlight the moral vacuum that Australia's corporate media inhabit than their coverage of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.

In the second part of this essay we look at some of the ways that public denial and public hysteria around homosexuality has influenced the military history of Britain, Germany and Australia.

A brief history of military masculinity from the Sacred Band to Frederick the Great.

How do you create an honest war museum?

Some timeless observations of Macquarie Island's wildlife from Antarctic explorer George F. Ainsworth (1878 - 1950).

Today on The Unravel we ask the question; Did 19th century sealers suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome?

Given this litany of disastrous invasions and bloody occupations, why do politicians continue to insist that their armies will be welcomed with open arms?

Despite the long history of ‘humanitarian interventions’ the idea that nations have an obligation to defend the rights of those beyond their own borders has only recently begun to gain acceptance.

The fallacy of liberation played a major part in inciting conflicts during the Cold War but realism's hindsight makes it hard to appreciate the initial idealism that accompanied these conflicts.

Case studies in strategic optimism from the Greco-Turkish War to the end of the World War II.

A brief history of the fallacy of liberation from the wars of the French Revolution to the end of the long 19th century.