by Ed Helms
First published 2025
Ed Helms takes readers on a decades-spanning tour through America's most spectacular government blunders. The actor and podcast host examines each era's signature disasters, from attempts to plant nuclear weapons on the moon to CIA programs that trained cats as spies. Helms uncovers the bizarre logic behind schemes to weaponize weather and countless other projects that went spectacularly wrong. Each chapter reveals the decision-making processes that led to these failures and traces their often terrifying consequences. The book spans fifty years of American mishaps, showing how bureaucratic overreach and misguided ambition created situations that were, in military parlance, completely fouled up but somehow typical. Helms writes with sharp wit about these historical faceplants while including illustrations that bring the absurdity to life. His approach balances entertainment with genuine insight into how institutions fail. The stories range from hilarious to deeply troubling, but all demonstrate the gap between grand plans and messy reality. This collection of governmental disasters offers both laughs and lessons about the patterns that keep repeating throughout American history.
Genres: history, non-fiction, government, american-history
Vibes: entertaining, informative, thought-provoking
Tropes: bureaucratic-overreach, institutional-failure
Period: 20th-Century, 21st-Century
288 pages · Hardcover · Grand Central Publishing