I had kind of a funny experience (well, at least it was funny to me) with my introduction to Howard Zinn…
My departed mother-in-law was, in life, a major-league liberal. She was a community organizer type of liberal. Now, I didn’t know this about her before I married my wife, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to me.
As the years went on, both my viewpoints and her viewpoints became known to each of us… and we entered a phase where she would say things deliberately to get a response out of me (or to see if I would just sit and say nothing)
Needless to say, I wasn’t about to sit and get baited by my mother-in-law, so I gave back in like kind when she initiated something. This went on for a relatively short period of time, then we kind of came to a mutual understanding. Neither one of us said a thing, but the understanding was there nonetheless that we would keep the peace by keeping our tongue. Not to say she wouldn’t occasionally poke at me (or me at her) but after that, that was pretty much all it was. I was kind of got the impression she was doing it just to see if I would stand up for myself.
In any case, I received a Christmas present from her one particular year. She knew that I was a history buff, and I read history prodigiously, so it was no surprise to me when I opened one of her Christmas presents and saw a history book. It was a fairly good-sized glossy volume, and I figured I’d put my feet up when I got home and begin reading.
When I got home, I opened the book up and began reading. At first, I was puzzled. “What the heck is this?” I read little bit further, and got even more perplexed. “What the hell kind of book is this?” I thought to myself.
I immediately begin skipping through the book, preferentially stopping in key areas in American history. As I reached each section, I would read sometimes only a sentence, or occasionally a paragraph. After I had been through multiple sections in this manner, I stood up angrily and exclaimed “screw this piece of crap!”
I walked out in the garage and through the book in the trash.
The name of the book was “The People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.
I was appalled. I had never seen a history book quite like that one. I was even more disturbed to find out later that this was an actual textbook used in public school classrooms all over the country. I’m still appalled at that thought.
In retrospect, it popped into my mind almost immediately as I was throwing the book in the trash, that this was perhaps my mother-in-law poking her finger in my eye. After a few more seconds of contemplation, I guessed that was not the case.
Knowing how my mother-in-law shops, particularly for Christmas presents, this book was almost undoubtedly on the bargain bookshelf at the front of the Borders bookstore when she walked in. I’d be willing to bet that she didn’t pay more than a few dollars for, because I doubt you could find it inside the store at regular price.
So, every time I hear the name Howard Zinn, I think of the anti-American far left political screed that was his book, that I had the pleasure to throw into a garbage can.
Regarding Christopher Columbus’s mission to find a new route to the spice islands by sailing west. In 1492 the overland trade routes from Europe to the Orient were blocked by the Ottoman Caliphate.
***The first was Columbus who is accused of genocide against the peaceful “Arawak” Indians.***
Before ZIN, it was known that the Arawak Indians were almost wiped out by the hostile Canabs or Carib Indians. It is where we get the word “Cannibal” and Caribbean.
Columbus found a Carib camp with pregnant Arawak women kept in cages. It appears the Carib-Canab Indians loved to snack on newborn Arawak babies.
I’m about halfway through Grabar’s book now and it is truly excellent and long overdue. Zinn has been the rock star of Marxist history for far longer than his actual merit warrants. If America were actually anything like his representation he’d have been stood up against a wall and shot rather than celebrated.
I wonder how much money the Zinn Educational Foundation gives to the teachers’ unions.
Blame Matt Damon:
Good Will Hunting popularized that lunatic and his propaganda.
“They will get lessons using Howard Zinn’s Marxist A People’s History of the United States, and produced by the Zinn Education Project. Breaking publishing records, Zinn’s book has sold over 2.6 million copies since it was first published in 1980. Sales grow each year.”
“A People’s History of the United States”
HEY, Dingbat Parents here. Wake Up!!! Zinn even uses a MARXIST codeword, “people’s” in the Friggen TITLE of his book - and your ‘wonderful’ public schools (I know, yours are ‘wonderful’, it’s all of those ‘other schools’ that suck) are buying them by the MILLIONS.
Please, just don’t blame anyone but YOURSELVES when your kids grow up to hate America - because you were warned here, over and over.
Howard Zinn was a stinking Red bastard and lied on behalf of a despotic agenda. His Communist overlords murdered over a hundred million people in the 20th century and it wasn’t enough to dissuade him.
He indoctrinated journalist students at BU.
His name should be sh!t. His politics certainly were.
Bump for Later
Zinn does not have ANY sources in his book. Not one.