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I’ve been discussing the wide variety of modules I offer on FractalPast. The other day I posted about some of the courses I had taken, as the foundation of my historical knowledge. I’ll be making another post next week about the many courses I taught in my more than twenty-year teaching career. But my research also provides another entrée point for expertise in a wide variety of historical fields and subfields. Though seemingly a narrow topic—US-Netherlands relations in the fifteen or so years after World War II—my book actually required that I familiarize myself with a host of distinct historical fields. Many of these overlap, of course, in some cases barely comprising a subfield. But every one of the following subject areas enjoys a robust literature, and the scrupulous researcher is obligated to engage with all of them:  US diplomatic history
Dutch history Dutch society and politics Dutch economic history Cold War International relations (IR) theory Transatlantic relations European history European integration European economic history History of socialism Colonization and decolonization Marshall Plan NATO US economic history US culture New Deal Hollywood Jim Crow, racism, and civil rights World War II, both military and homefront WWII occupation and resistance US empire and expansion US public diplomacy and cultural relations Soviet history Maritime history Hydrodynamics (!) Like all knowledge, historical knowledge is cumulative; becoming expert in one thing always requires building on a base of expertise. I am pursuing a similar process in my current work-in-progress on Daisy Lampkin. I am eager to share these lessons and what I have learned with a wider audience! —David J. Snyder
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AuthorI am an editor and historian of US history, diplomacy, and international relations. Archives
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Why empire?This blog presents new scholarship on American empire, places the American experience in a broader and global imperial context, explores imperial habits throughout American society and culture, uncovers the imperial connections between the foreign and the domestic, and develops “empire” as a critical perspective.
At least two features in the American experience are clarified through the lens of American empire: First, we better understand persistent social inequities in a nation professing a fundamental commitment to equality. Second, even a cursory glance at American history makes plain the chronic violence at the center of US foreign policy, which frequently mounts or supports bloody military conflict abroad. Empire helps us recognize how and why the United States seems to be constantly at war--including often with itself--with all the foreign and domestic consequences thereof. |
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