Announcement: FractalPast History

I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new venture: FractalPast online history courses. Editing services will continue, but it seems to me there is a need and a thirst for something new. We live in an age of AI slop, of aggressive propaganda, and stultifying algorithms that constrain the spirit and assault the mind. I think people are hungering for something real, something grounded, something that can help anchor us in unsettled times. And there is no better way to face the present and the future than to understand the past.

I have been a historian my entire professional career. I have taught at universities in the US and abroad, and I have worked hard to educate my students in a very broad range of courses. But even counting the tens of thousands of students I have had the pleasure of teaching, I have always been struck by how inaccessible the study of history is, especially to Americans. Most Americans get little more than watered down (and often highly contentious) high school courses. Those fortunate enough to go to college may get a couple survey courses, if they are lucky, but nothing in depth, and little opportunity for true critical reflection on the past that’s shaped us. Even highly educated Americans may be historically illiterate on a wide range of topics. Quality books and videos are available, but these are often hit or miss, and normally touch only those who take the trouble to solicit them.
 
I intend FractalPast to be something different, something much more human, and much more humane.
 
I am offering small, focused, and intense six-week considerations of various and select historical topics, without propaganda, without agenda, without an algorithm. Just the opportunity to learn, to think, and to reflect critically.
 
While I don’t maintain a political agenda, and I hope that FractalPast history modules can ground anyone in a topic in which they are interested, it cannot be denied that we are living through an age of broad attacks on much that previous generations of Americans have built, including long-established and cherished ideas and traditions. Many seem to be watching this dismantling with some alarm, but if so it seems to be a highly muted alarm, almost stultified. Perhaps in many cases most Americans do not know the histories behind what is being lost. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was defunded and dismantled last year, to take one example, yet how many Americans know anything about USAID's history, including its predecessor, the Marshall Plan, the signature US foreign policy of the twentieth century? NATO has been under attack from the US government for well over a year, but there have been few American media presentations offering the basics of why, when, and how NATO was established or the historical purposes it was intended to serve. Much of the infrastructure of US economic regulation is being dismantled, yet how many of us know about the history of the New Deal, when so many of these regulatory agencies (or their predecessors) were created?
 
We are losing cultural infrastructure, regulatory oversight, and civic sphere accountability, yet many of us lack the ability to put any of this in historical context.
 
My hope is that FractalPast can provide reliable and grounded narratives that help us reconnect not only to who we were, but who we could become. FractalPast is about our history, and as such is about our humanity, not a particular politics.
 
Because I am not primarily interested in propaganda or in narratives with explicit political allegiances, all modules are highly suitable not only for Americans, but to learners around the world.
 
Check out the course catalog for what you can find here. I’ll be announcing the first two modules within the next couple of weeks. As always, shoot me an email at [email protected] for questions or more information.
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-- David J. Snyder