Howard Zinn Died

[Cicero]

Hey Im not saying he's perfect, I just wasn't sure what was so objectionable about the part Cicero drug out. If our mission here is to find a time when he was wrong, or misspoke, would we really be surprised to find examples of each?

Not many can claim spotless records in these respects... I guess Cicero's argument is that Zinn's is SO shoddy, we should discount most of what he says. Given my experience with his material, I'm not sure that's true. I still think Cicero is missing "the weight and meaning" of a viewpoint he doesn't "favor".

Listen to the whole interview. When Zinn is asked to defend his point of view of America, and how he arrived at his POV, Zinn seems to answer these questions as if he is doing so for the first time in his life. Zinn never waivers from his POV in his books, but when confronted with basic questions about the validity of his POV, the supposedly cogent author becomes wishy–washy. Wasn't there any dissent in his classrooms as expressed by his students? Did all his students just blindly accept Zinn's take on American history?

 

[Cicero]

Oh ya it was all just disease!

According to Zinn, 90% was due to disease and 10% due to "annihilation." So you are now arguing with Zinn, the "historian."

 

[Skeptic]

I'm willing to experience better. Is there a book you can recommend that satisfies a similar interest without Zinn's flaws?

There are many books I could give if the following suggestion doesn't work... but why don't you start at the source? Toqueville's Democracy in America is amazing, especially the second part. Outdated on some things, obviously, but on the other hand close to many important events.

The author was not, of course, following modern research methods and some of his conclusions are disputed, but the sheer breadth of his observations and -- above all -- his attempt to be objective (totally lacking in Zinn's pseudo-history), to show Americans as they are, neither devils nor angels, is superb. By the way, contrary to Zinn's and his supporters' claim about American history being "whitewashed", this book -- probably the most famous of all American history books -- is very open and detailed about the suffering of Blacks or the Indians, for example.