Zinn's People's History of the US

[IrishHand]

On the advice of a friend, I picked this one up on eBay. I've read the first few chapters and find it fascinating. I'm curious if anyone else has read it and what they think about it.

[GWB]

Does the proletariat win in the end?

[andyfox]

. . . "proletariat . . ."

Here I thought you were the real Dubya. But he definitely doesn't have your vocabulary. The jig's up.

[andyfox]

When I was growing up, all the history was basically triumphalist. When I first read Zinn, it was indeed a revelation, a new way of viewing our history.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I took a course with Howard Zinn as an undergraduate. I credit him with teaching me one of the most important facts I learned in college:

Just because someone is a college professor doesn't necessarily mean he has an ounce of brains or insight.

[andyfox]

Zinn is an unabashed lefty, of course; [but] his history rings much truer than the b.s. I was taught in grade school. We didn't "win" the west; Columbus didn't "discover" America. Zinn's history has much more insight than the Perry Miller/Samuel Eliot Morison/etc. versions my generation was raised on.

[Ed Miller]

I'm reading it right now. I had my copy with me at the Mirage, and Dynasty walked up to me and said, "What are you reading?" I showed him the front, and he said, "Ewwwww, History?! You can't read history in a casino."

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
Just because someone is a college professor doesn't necessarily mean he has an ounce of brains or insight.

[/ QUOTE ]
LOL, I found that same thing. You have to be true to yourself and weigh everything you hear in life, then draw your own conclusions. There is still a flat earth society somewhere out there.

[1111]

IrishHand,

I found Zinn's book to be very interesting. Generally in reading, as in poker, you have fleshed out a persons general stance within a short period of time, and from there you can extrapolate interesting tidbits of info from their individual perspective. With Zinn, I found much of the "down and dirty" history of the U.S. to be very refreshing and new. The only part of the book I didn't like was the final chapter, where he lays out his idealist ethos in full force. Other than that, a very good read.

1111

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Columbus didn't "discover" America.

Depends on from whose perspective. Obviously a multitude of humans saw the Pacific before Balboa, for example, and Columbus never set foot in what is now the USA.

Zinn is an unabashed lefty

No doubt. I recently read a piece he wrote that was very critical of all US military involvement in the 20th century in which he conveniently left out the fact that he himself was a bomber pilot in WWII.

his history rings much truer than the b.s. I was taught in grade school.

One of the few absolute truths is that *all* history is partially BS, because it's all tainted with the agenda of the writer.

I doubt there's a single culture or nation in the world that would really want a purely objective history to be written.

Zinn's history has much more insight than the Perry Miller/Samuel Eliot Morison/etc. versions my generation was raised on.

I'm from the same generation, Andy, and I hold no illusions about the nature of, say, our westward expansion (my mind flirts with the word "genocide"). Yet i still take Zinn's view with many, many grains of salt.

The fact that we were imperfect in our history does not give any more credence to the Marxist interpretation.