Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87

Boston.com ^ | January 27, 2010 | Mark Feeney, Globe Staff

[yetidog]

Hope his books died with him.

[Menehune56]

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
- Clarence Darrow

[Misterioso]

Sixty years too late.

[HateBill]

I took a course taught by Zinn at BU because it was rumored to be such a gut. For a paper, you had to describe one personal experience as an “activist.” Since I had zero experience as a left-wing activist, I wrote a paper on Louise Day Hicks, who was the great anti-busing figure of the 60’s. I never went to class so I had to go to his office to get my grade and he was perplexed that I so misunderstood the topic and did not write of any experience as an activisit, but I got a B+ nonetheless because he especially liked my depiction of Louise Day Hicks as “dimpled and motherly” (for a fascist, of course!).

[Gay State Conservative]

Sixty years too late.

More like 87....

[muawiyah]

He was down here in Springfield visiting once and it was my misfortune to get picked up as a FOURTH for the then HOV-4 deal.

What a putz.

I have a personal dislike of this guy.

[kabar]

Howard didn’t die. He is alive and well in Argentina. Hell, if he can change the facts, so can I.

[popdonnelly]

Most people don’t even know who Howard Zinn was, or care. He’s only a favorite of the left wing types that squat in academia and some of our media.

Chomsky’s next.

[AmericanVictory]

Why is parroting the failed ideas of Karl Marx visionary or in any way helpful to real progress? It is realistically the dead hand of ideas that have been repeatedly shown by history not to work.

[rmlew]

The communist who has poisoned the mind of a generation is dead. Burn in Hell.

[buwaya]

Most people don’t, which is a good thing in one sense.

They haven’t actually read his books, nor have they read all the masses of stuff by others directly influenced by him. They have saved their time and been that much less miseducated.

But then there are the other people, not most of course, but a substantial and troublesome fraction, that have indeed been badly miseducated, and a large degree of their miseducation can be blamed on Zinn. This is such a large number that it has aggravated our national problems in every way. That is a fact of which the majority should be aware.

[buwaya]

It is amazing how many copies of this book are out there. No other general history of the US (not that it is that, but it is commonly so regarded) has been sold in such numbers.

The status quo indeed. Zinn was and is the status quo.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Down in Hell, being slow roasted over a huge pile of burning Das Kapital.

[rdl6989]

As a history buff I started to read one of his books once. No thanks, this guy was a nut.

[sergeantdave]

Read thru all the comments. At least there’s no FReeper Christian praying for his recovery so he can continue with the destruction of America, as happened when Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

FR is maturing. Good.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Prayers for a deeply misguided soul.

[a fool in paradise]

Question authority. Question the authority of historical revisionists who lie by omission and propaganize on behalf of global Communism.

One more bit of academic bias bites the dust.

Toss his texts on the scrap heap of history along with eugenics texts and the writings of Marx and Hitler.

[a fool in paradise]

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam

Born around 1923, I have to wonder if he was among those American Communists (like Pete Seeger) who protested against the US going to war against Nazi Germany (at least until he betrayed his pact with their beloved Joseph Stalin).

They weren't anti-war. They were pro-Communist. Why they didn't tell the North Vietnamese people to leave the Southerners free is something they never settled.

[a fool in paradise]

It is amazing how many copies of this book are out there. No other general history of the US (not that it is that, but it is commonly so regarded) has been sold in such numbers.

Bill Bennett's America The Last Best Hope has been picked up by a textbook company for offering to school boards.

From Publishers Weekly
Bennett, a secretary of education under President Reagan and author of The Book of Virtues, offers a new, improved history of America, one, he says, that will respark hope and a "conviction about American greatness and purpose" in readers. He believes current offerings do not "give Americans an opportunity to enjoy the story of their country, to take pleasure and pride in what we have done and become." To this end, Bennett methodically hits the expected patriotic high points (Lewis & Clark, the Gettysburg Address) and even, to its credit, a few low ones (Woodrow Wilson's racism, Teddy Roosevelt's unjust dismissal of black soldiers in the Brownsville judgment). America is best suited for a high school or home-schooled audience searching for a general, conservative-minded textbook. More discerning adult readers will find that the lack of originality and the overreliance on a restricted number of dated sources (Samuel Eliot Morison, Daniel Boorstin, Henry Steele Commager) make the book a retread of previous popular histories (such as Boorstin's The Americans). This is history put to use as inspiration rather than serving to enlighten or explain, but Bennett does succeed in shaping the material into a coherent, readable narrative. (May 23)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–This exhaustive political and military history is well organized, with an excellent table of contents, 13 chapter titles that include dates, and each chapter divided into sections with headings for easy scanning. The chronological narrative covers familiar content, and Bennett writes in a conversational tone. In each chapter he sets the stage, relates events in detail, sprinkles in quotes from personages or literature of the time, and then shifts into editorial mode on such issues as slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, and child-labor practices. He humanizes the main characters with physical descriptions and anecdotes. This lively book acknowledges mistakes and shortcomings, yet patriotically asserts that the American experiment in democracy is still a success story.–Sondra VanderPloeg, Tracy Memorial Library, New London, NH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.