​About a month ago ten individuals were shot or detained by Cuban authorities just off the northern coast of Cuba. Officials claimed the group was attempting to infiltrate Cuba, with unspecified “terrorist” aims in mind. Among the dead was a US citizen, one other US citizen was apprehended. Apparently the rest of the group were permanent US residents of one sort or another. There has been only sporadic follow-up reporting on what appears to be a highly unusual incident: a small party of armed Americans attempting to invade a sovereign foreign country inside the Western hemisphere.
 
For students of US diplomatic history, the affair is really not so unusual at all:

As I put the final pieces in place for the forthcoming FractalPast modules, I’ve been thinking a lot about my own coursework. Much, but not all, of my knowledge base has come from my own research and teaching career since I graduated with my PhD. But I was also very fortunate to have a very broad foundation laid for me before I ever became a practitioner myself. I enjoyed excellent teachers offering intellectual rigor mixed with compassion and care.

I do not imagine the history I produce here or elsewhere to function as a direct response to misinformation or propaganda. Such an approach is itself reactionary. But insofar as misinformation proliferates, and bad-faith policymakers continue to distort history, I do believe that historians maintain some duty to combat propaganda. The past several years have born witness to many officials directly or indirectly endeavoring to weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a collective defense alliance that appears to have served the signatories well for over seventy years. I treat Dutch participation in NATO in various places in my book, most extensively in Chapter 5. I thought I’d share a couple relevant excerpts, after the break:

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'm not inclined to often post links to other long-form articles on this blog, and though I admit I have a vested interest in the survival (and thriving!) of non-fiction literature, this story seemed important enough to warrant a minor exception. Recommended:
​Nonfiction Publishing, Under Threat, Is More Important Than Ever | The New Republic

When I entered my PhD program, I was primarily interested in the history of the far left in American political life, notably the history of the Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA), including the reactionary attempt to squash far left politics through vehicles such as the Smith Act, loyalty oaths, or McCarthyism. I had written my Master’s thesis on John Howard Lawson, a playwright who became a leading screenwriter in the 1930s and 40s, the doyen of the Stalinist left in Hollywood, and the ringleader of the group of screenwriters and producers who would in 1947 become infamous as the “Hollywood Ten.” Through Lawson I broadened my interests into Hollywood and American cinema history. At one point I even thought I might write a dissertation on the history of American drive-ins. But all that changed in a cemetery in the small town of Amersfoort, The Netherlands. In an instant one cold December afternoon I became a diplomatic historian.

How to be a more effective writer? Well, there are emotional and psychological cadences that are important for effective writing: confidence, perseverance, perhaps courage. One must be able to tread the inevitable ebbs and flows of motivation. There are no shortcuts, and discipline is imperative. But leaving those emotional and psychological registers behind for the moment, I’m reflecting on the one piece of technical advice that I have most often offered throughout my career to the question, “How can I improve my writing?” If I could give but one answer to that question, I think it would be: Attend to your topic sentences

I imagine for some people being edited feels like a kind of assault, one’s deepest failings and frailties laid bare for the judgment of others. I know that I have edited authors who are awaiting my response to their work like a defendant awaiting a verdict. I suspect to many authors, a query in the margin can come across as an accusation: Why did you choose THIS word and not THAT? Why did you phrase it this way and not that? What is WRONG WITH YOU???

This feeling of the edit as a judgment can work in the opposite direction, too, as many writers look forward to the euphoria of vindication, of having their worth or their talent verified by an expert, self-esteem padded and pampered by gushing praise.

But an edit is not an audit. It is not the time either for condemnation or vindication, however powerful the psychology of the moment might be. I want to suggest that an edit is better thought of not as a moment of judgment, but as a process of collaborative refinement.