I don’t think using Zinn as an example of objective work is going to work well. Many historians have criticized Zinn. One of the more disturbing criticisms is a complete failure to update known issues when going to later editions of his book. Loewen seems like a substantially better example in this context.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough about that. I didn’t mean to cite Zinn as objective. I meant to cite him as a counter-example to the suggestion that US historians might be dominated by one particular set of biases. I tried to indicate this by saying, “it does suggest the biases will run in enough different directions to prevent the entire history profession from converging on nonsense.”
(EDIT: tried to tweak the wording to make this clearer.)
I don’t think using Zinn as an example of objective work is going to work well. Many historians have criticized Zinn. One of the more disturbing criticisms is a complete failure to update known issues when going to later editions of his book. Loewen seems like a substantially better example in this context.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough about that. I didn’t mean to cite Zinn as objective. I meant to cite him as a counter-example to the suggestion that US historians might be dominated by one particular set of biases. I tried to indicate this by saying, “it does suggest the biases will run in enough different directions to prevent the entire history profession from converging on nonsense.”
(EDIT: tried to tweak the wording to make this clearer.)