Perhaps the nicest thing you can say about Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States is that it shows that even in the era of the Internet a book can continue to have an immense social impact.
Published in 1980, Zinn's book has for some time been, as Mary Grabar notes in her definitive new study of it, Debunking Howard Zinn, both the bestselling trade history of America and the bestselling American history textbook.
Today, Zinn's book isn't just an insidious alternative; it is the reigning book in the field, and its once alternative take on US history has become received wisdom on the establishment left.
Not a few of the students who read the book years ago when they were college students, and who fell for Zinn's take on US history hook, line, and sinker, are now teachers who are using the same book to indoctrinate their own charges.
One of the things I learned from Grabar is that Matt Damon - who, in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting worked in a plug for Zinn's book that gave it a major boost - grew up with Zinn as a neighbor and was sucked in by People's History by the age of ten.
Grabar supplies a useful catalog of major historians who, although left-wing themselves, have given Zinn's book an unambiguous thumbs-down.
In her introductory note, Grabar points out that there exist valuable challenges to Zinn, such as A Patriot's History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, which, I have been informed to my delight, is used in conjunction with Zinn in a number of history courses; it would be nice to see Grabar's own, equally invaluable book find its way onto such curricula.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274799/zinns-omission-bruce-bawer
Published in 1980, Zinn's book has for some time been, as Mary Grabar notes in her definitive new study of it, Debunking Howard Zinn, both the bestselling trade history of America and the bestselling American history textbook.
Today, Zinn's book isn't just an insidious alternative; it is the reigning book in the field, and its once alternative take on US history has become received wisdom on the establishment left.
Not a few of the students who read the book years ago when they were college students, and who fell for Zinn's take on US history hook, line, and sinker, are now teachers who are using the same book to indoctrinate their own charges.
One of the things I learned from Grabar is that Matt Damon - who, in the 1997 movie Good Will Hunting worked in a plug for Zinn's book that gave it a major boost - grew up with Zinn as a neighbor and was sucked in by People's History by the age of ten.
Grabar supplies a useful catalog of major historians who, although left-wing themselves, have given Zinn's book an unambiguous thumbs-down.
In her introductory note, Grabar points out that there exist valuable challenges to Zinn, such as A Patriot's History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen, which, I have been informed to my delight, is used in conjunction with Zinn in a number of history courses; it would be nice to see Grabar's own, equally invaluable book find its way onto such curricula.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274799/zinns-omission-bruce-bawer
No comments:
Post a Comment