The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets

On February 1, Dr. Matthew Connelly will be at AGS to discuss his recent book, The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets.

Dr. Matthew Connelly is the director of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge and a professor of international and global history at Columbia University. From 2016 to 2023, he was co-director of Columbia’s social science research center, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. Previously, from 2009 to 2013, Connelly directed the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, a research program on the history and future of planetary threats, including nuclear war, pandemics, and climate change. Since then, Connelly has been the principal investigator of History Lab, a project that uses data science to analyze state secrecy, with a focus on intelligence, surveillance, and weapons of mass destruction. His publications include A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population, and, most recently, The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America’s Top Secrets.