FractalPast

9 Threaded Spouts

We drew attention recently to several histories of Hollywood’s Production Code, but why is that history important? One might want to understand how a coterie of powerful censors shaped the industry that itself was already the most influential mass medium of the 20th century.

03:32 PM - Jun 25, 2023

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4 Threaded Spouts

Are you a classic Hollywood fan, but always wondered why the movies of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s always seemed a little square? Why does the bad guy always get it in the end? Why did married couples sleep in different beds? The answer is not . . .

10:41 PM - Jun 23, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

Are you a seasoned history buff? Or just wish you knew more about the US past? Check out FractalPast.com and related social media links for daily history content, book and channel reviews, recommendations, thoughtful blogging about American history and culture, and even in-person history courses:

10:06 AM - Jun 23, 2023

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Emily Rosenberg's work is essential to understand how American power operates both at home and abroad. Privatized power, as she shows, is often much more effective than the exercise of public power.

An appreciation here: https://www.fractalpast.co...

#dollardiplomacy
#AmericanEmpire

01:21 PM - Jun 22, 2023

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My latest blogpost is a further reflection on public goods, in this case, U.S. diplomacy as a public good, and how particular American notions of what is public and what is private tend to obscure American influence and U.S. power abroad: https://www.fractalpast.co...

11:58 PM - Jun 18, 2023

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We agree with John Oliver: "Ignoring the history you don't like is not a victimless act."

https://www.youtube.com/wa...

Are there gaps in your historical knowledge? Want to be challenged by expert and engaging deep-dives into American history? Check out fractalpast.com.

U.S. History: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - YouTube

John Oliver takes a look at how the history of race in America is taught in schools, how we can make those teachings more accurate, and why it’s in everyone'...

05:11 PM - Jun 18, 2023

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"If an empire, post-World War II America was the empire that dared not speak its name."

-- Charles S. Maier, "An American Empire? The Problems of Frontiers and Peace in Twenty-First Century World Politics," in Young and Gardner, The New American Empire (New Press, 2005), xi.

09:43 AM - Jun 15, 2023

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"[T]o the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics."

-- Frederick Jackson Turner, "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" (Dover, 1996), p. 37.

What do you think? Is Turner right?

12:19 PM - Jun 14, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

"Americanization was most evident in mass consumption and mass culture, more limited in political and intellectual life, and scarcely present in social policy."

-- Mary Nolan, The Transatlantic Century: Europe and America, 1890-2010 (Cambridge, 2012), p. 5.

10:36 AM - Jun 12, 2023

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I would also recommend a new (2019) stirring documentary about the 2d Ranger battalion's harrowing D-Day assault on the German guns at Pointe-du-Hoc:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/...

06:41 AM - Jun 06, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

I've had the pleasure of recommending the YouTube history channel "The Operations Room" previously. In honor of the anniversary of D-Day, I have the pleasure of recommending one of their fine videos on an important aspect of that epic battle: https://www.youtube.com/wa...

Easy Company Assaults the Guns at Brecourt Manor on D-Day - Animated - YouTube

Lt. Winters is thrust in charge of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment on D-Day, and must lead an assault on the artillery battery at Brecourt Ma...

06:37 AM - Jun 06, 2023

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Fresh blog post up, with further thoughts on the defining nature of the imperial frontier:
https://www.fractalpast.co...

03:02 PM - Jun 05, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

Are you a seasoned history lover? Or just wish you knew more about how history has shaped our present? Check out FractalPast.com and our related social media links for daily history content, book and channel reviews, recommendations, thoughtful blogging . . .

10:12 AM - Jun 05, 2023

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I invite you to follow me at fractalpast.com/blog where I offer informed deep dives into US history and culture through the lens of empire. Understand what empire is, how the American empire operates abroad and at home, and why it all matters.

#AmericanEmpire
#history

05:52 PM - Jun 02, 2023

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We are very pleased to launch http://fractalpast.com, an online suite of affordable, digital history courses that you can take from home. Courses meet once a week for six weeks. Learn about the Cold War, the New Deal, U.S. foreign policy, and much, much more!

03:01 PM - Apr 11, 2023

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FractalPast doesn't always "do" historical anniversaries. But today, remembering the #TulsaRaceMassacre of 1921, a meditation on #SystemicRacism in American history: www.fractalpast.com/blog. Comments and reflections are very welcome.

11:11 AM - May 31, 2023

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6 Threaded Spouts

FractalPast rec:

Andrew Friedman’s Covert Capital: Landscapes of Denial and the Making of US Empire in the Suburbs of Northern Virginia (California, 2013) brilliantly shows how the region around the CIA headquarters at Langley (roughly from the Pentagon west to Dulles Airport) . . .

10:52 AM - May 30, 2023

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6 Threaded Spouts

The reflection entreated of us on #memorialday is essentially historical: for what purposes has America fought? to what aims have her soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines given their sacred lives?

03:15 PM - May 29, 2023 (Edited)

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3 Threaded Spouts

For decades Robert Moses may have been the most powerful American alive. From the 1930s into the 1960s he was responsible for all of the major, and many of the minor, public building projects in New York city and beyond: bridges, tunnels, expressways, harbors, parks, housing and much, much more.

12:53 PM - May 28, 2023

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The U.S. in the 20th century arose as "a great imperium with the outlook of a great emporium."
-- Victoria DeGrazia, Irresistible Empire: America's Advance through 20th-Century Europe (Belknap, 2005), 3.

New #AmericanEmpire course begins June 21: https://www.fractalpast.co...

02:40 PM - May 27, 2023

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New blog post just dropped, speculating on "Americanization" and The Diary of Anne Frank:

https://www.fractalpast.co...

www.fractalpast.com

#Americanization
#AnneFrank

12:35 PM - May 26, 2023

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2 Threaded Spouts

Are you a seasoned history lover? Or just wished you knew more? Check out FractalPast.com and our related social media links for daily history content, book and channel reviews, recommendations, thoughtful blogging about American history and culture, and even in-person history courses:

08:47 PM - May 25, 2023

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4 Threaded Spouts

FractalPast History Recommendation:

The loss of the immortal Tina Turner makes a visit to Nashville’s brand new (2021) National Museum of African American Music (nmaam.org) all the more timely.

11:34 AM - May 25, 2023

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As promised the other day, we're starting a discussion about American #publicgoods over at the Fractalpast blog. Would love to hear your responses:

https://www.fractalpast.co...

01:14 PM - May 24, 2023

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Recommendation:
One of our favorite YouTube channels is Oversimplified (https://www.youtube.com/@O... which features polished and well-produced, charming, and witty history animations. Everyone in the family will be well entertained--and learn a lot! Check them out!

youtube.com

OverSimplified - YouTube

Explaining things in an OverSimplified way

10:57 AM - May 24, 2023

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"Denying empire is simply part of the unique modus operandi of American empire itself."

-- Julian Go, Patterns of Empire: The British and American Empires, 1688 to the Present (Cambridge, 2011), p. 2.

11:17 AM - May 23, 2023

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New blog post has just hit the wires:
Empires and Their Ideologies.
I would love to hear your thoughts at: https://www.fractalpast.co...

02:43 PM - May 22, 2023

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New blog post has just hit the wires:

Empires and Their Ideologies.

I would love to hear your thoughts at:

https://www.fractalpast.co...

02:43 PM - May 22, 2023

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