My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the map-maker’s distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose shared by all people who need maps. The historian’s distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual.
The book is quite clearly propaganda. It sets out to advance a specific thesis, and there is literally no evidence provided against that idea. The bottom line was written at the beginning of the book, and he spent the rest of the book providing arguments for it. That doesn’t mean, however, that his positions are necessarily wrong (see the addendum on the link above). Certainly, Zinn’s positions have some flaws, but he does raise some issues that haven’t been raised with other history texts.
The bottom line was written at the beginning of the book, and he spent the rest of the book providing arguments for it.
It seems to me that the original quote is an explicit statement that that is what he is going to to. As is, even more explicitly, the mission statement on the top page of that website. An extract:
History isn’t what happened, but the stories of what happened and the lessons these stories include. … We cannot simply be passive. We must choose whose interests are best: those who want to keep things going as they are or those who want to work to make a better world. If we choose the latter, we must seek out the tools we will need. History is just one tool to shape our understanding of our world. And every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.
There’s a whole cottage industry arguing over whether Zinn did solve it the way the T-Rex did or not. Although speaking as someone who agrees with some but not most of Zinn’s politics, he did in some ways do a decent job focusing on areas of history that had not gotten a lot of attention due to ideological issues.
There is some value in criticizing that which has been improperly popularly lionized, but this introduces its own skew. Zinn managed to truly piss me off because in his chapter on WWII he either did not mention or mentioned only in passing the rape of Nanking and similar Japanese atrocities, spent a few paragraphs on the Holocaust, surprisingly didn’t particularly mention the firebombings of Dresden or Tokyo, but harped for several pages on the atomic bombs. Perhaps they needed examination, but incessantly and loudly examining them at the expense of everything else leaves the reader with a distinct impression of Zinn’s own political beliefs.
I think this might be behind much of (American) conservatives’ anger with liberals in the foreign policy domain, as exemplified by the insult “blame-America-first”. Liberals are questioning America’s policies, which is well and good, while leaving it as read that the actions of their adversaries (since the dynamic evolved, usually USSR or terrorists) are much worse. Conservatives see that apparent bias and gain the impression that all liberals hate America in particular. The situation is not improved by much political mind-death on all sides. This is probably going off on a bit of a tangent, but it’s at least marginally relevant.
Zinn assumed familiarity with those though! He didn’t have anything novel to say about them, why simply regurgitate what’s known so idiots won’t misinterpret you?
My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis, which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians.
Did you even read that sentence? There is no problem and no attempt at solution, he is just pointing out an important fact that had escaped me(and I guess lots of other folks) until I read the quote.
-- Howard Zinn in A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
I’d be more interested to hear how he intends to solve the problem. Hopefully not the same way T-Rex did.
The book is propaganda. Wikipedia’s collection of critical views.
The book is quite clearly propaganda. It sets out to advance a specific thesis, and there is literally no evidence provided against that idea. The bottom line was written at the beginning of the book, and he spent the rest of the book providing arguments for it. That doesn’t mean, however, that his positions are necessarily wrong (see the addendum on the link above). Certainly, Zinn’s positions have some flaws, but he does raise some issues that haven’t been raised with other history texts.
It seems to me that the original quote is an explicit statement that that is what he is going to to. As is, even more explicitly, the mission statement on the top page of that website. An extract:
There’s a whole cottage industry arguing over whether Zinn did solve it the way the T-Rex did or not. Although speaking as someone who agrees with some but not most of Zinn’s politics, he did in some ways do a decent job focusing on areas of history that had not gotten a lot of attention due to ideological issues.
There is some value in criticizing that which has been improperly popularly lionized, but this introduces its own skew. Zinn managed to truly piss me off because in his chapter on WWII he either did not mention or mentioned only in passing the rape of Nanking and similar Japanese atrocities, spent a few paragraphs on the Holocaust, surprisingly didn’t particularly mention the firebombings of Dresden or Tokyo, but harped for several pages on the atomic bombs. Perhaps they needed examination, but incessantly and loudly examining them at the expense of everything else leaves the reader with a distinct impression of Zinn’s own political beliefs.
I think this might be behind much of (American) conservatives’ anger with liberals in the foreign policy domain, as exemplified by the insult “blame-America-first”. Liberals are questioning America’s policies, which is well and good, while leaving it as read that the actions of their adversaries (since the dynamic evolved, usually USSR or terrorists) are much worse. Conservatives see that apparent bias and gain the impression that all liberals hate America in particular. The situation is not improved by much political mind-death on all sides. This is probably going off on a bit of a tangent, but it’s at least marginally relevant.
Zinn assumed familiarity with those though! He didn’t have anything novel to say about them, why simply regurgitate what’s known so idiots won’t misinterpret you?
I don’t believe that that’s what was really going on.
Sigh. Let me quote a part again:
Did you even read that sentence? There is no problem and no attempt at solution, he is just pointing out an important fact that had escaped me(and I guess lots of other folks) until I read the quote.