STORY

Peter Merlin — a former NASA archivist — partnered with multidisciplinary artist Trevor Paglen to pull together this book, a photographic inventory of objects from America’s aerospace industry. Culled from military bases like Area 51, it features everything from challenge coins, patches, and commemorative mugs to debris recovered from nearby crash sites. This book presents a social and technological investigation into the US government’s secret aviation history, from the atomic age to today’s drones. Spanning the goofy and the sinister, the images are paired with in-depth captions and essays by Paglen, providing context and addressing the modern-day ramifications of the subject matter.