Howard Zinn

{{bronze}}[[File:Howard_Zinn.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Howard Zinn]]{{historynav}}
'''Howard Zinn''' {{lived|1922|2010}} was an [[American]] left-wing activist, author, [[historian]] and [[professor]] of [[history]] and [[political science]]. He is most famous for writing ''A People's History of the United States'' and knocking Matt Damon on his ass.

A controversial historian, Zinn's belief in [[social justice]] determined how he approached researching and presenting U.S. history. He paid great attention to many shameful chapters of American history that textbooks [[Nationalism in history textbooks| sanitize]] and praised the elided reformers who fought to right these wrongs. Yet, as his views on social democracy became increasingly unacceptable, within the USA itself he was increasingly accused of having [[partisan]] goals which compromised his [[empiricism]] and nuance. Today, his [[socialism]] causes his works to be dismissed by some academics within his own country. Yet they and those of his fellow socialist pariah [[Noam Chomsky]] remain mainstays of international courses on US history.

==Activism==
Zinn was a [[World War II]] veteran and criticized "[[War crimes|collateral damage]]" that occurred in the [[bombing of Dresden]] and the nuclear attacks on [[Hiroshima and Nagasaki]].

He started out his academic career in 1956 as a history professor at Spelman College, a black [[women]]'s college in Atlanta, [[Georgia]]. He was eventually sacked from this position for assisting the students in anti-[[segregation]] efforts.

Later, he became a central figure in the movement against the [[Vietnam War]], authoring an early work calling for the U.S. to withdraw quickly and unconditionally and also traveling to Vietnam as part of an attempt to get U.S. prisoners of war released. He also played a part in an attempt to get the American Historical Association to pass a resolution against the Vietnam War. To overcome the objections of the majority of its members, who did not wish to see the AHA get involved in politics, Zinn snatched the speaking microphone in an effort to get the relevant proposals heard; this resulted in an impromptu wrestling match between him and the AHA president for control of the microphone,<ref>[http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/issues/2010/1002/1002tim1.cfm Forty Years On: Looking Back at the 1969 Annual Meeting], AHA</ref> which Zinn compared in [[Lulz|magnitude]] to the [[Spanish-American War]].

With [[Noam Chomsky]], he edited and expounded upon the [[Pentagon Papers]], that series of confidential U.S. government memos about the Vietnam War leaked by Daniel Ellsberg.

==Political views==
He described himself as "something of an [[anarchist]], something of a [[socialist]]. Maybe a [[democratic socialist]],"<ref>[http://flag.blackened.net/ias/13zinn.htm "War is the Health of the State: An Interview with Howard Zinn"]</ref> although the anarchists to whom he gave this description considered it contradictory. In ''A People's History of the United States'', he expresses a fondness for the [[American Indian]] tribal [[social]] order, which seems largely to be because said social order was later obliterated by the villains of that book as discussed below. In the rest of the book, he tends mostly toward the straight-up anarchistic view, espousing a preference for large, leaderless [[grassroots]] [[revolution]]ary movements working by [[direct action]], though a socialistic view also makes an appearance in his positive portrayal of the [[Vietnam]]ese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh.<ref>''A People's History'', Chapter 18.</ref> The [[democratic]] part does not seem to be present, as he did not have very much good to say about democratic institutions (or, as he often termed it in the form of a [[snarl word]], "electoral politics") which, in his view, mostly assumed the role of [[Satan]] seducing the hearts of social activists.<ref name="Kazin">[https://archive.is/http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=385 Michael Kazin on Zinn]</ref> For example, at one point he [[Denial|downplayed the significance]] of the very long-lived and [[moderate]] farmers' organization, the National Grange, in favor of the short-lived and [[radical]] Farmers' Alliance, in order to criticize it for moderating itself into the Populist Party.<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|285}} However, Zinn sometimes supported candidates, including [[John Kerry]] in the [[2004 U.S. presidential election]].<ref>[https://www.thenation.com/article/ex-nader-leaders-change-tune/ "Ex-Nader Leaders Change Tune"]. ''The Nation''.</ref> In the early 1960s, Zinn traveled across the Deep South helping to organize voting drives against Jim Crow.<ref>[https://www.howardzinn.org/freedom-day-selma-1963/ "On the Road to Voting Rights: Freedom Day in Selma, 1963" HowardZinn.org]</ref>

===Communist involvement===
The [[FBI]] fingered him as a member of the [[Communist Party USA]] during that party's [[Stalinist]] period:

{{quotebox|Zinn was born in Brooklyn, New York and died at the age of 87 on January 27, 2010. As a young man, he worked as a shipyard hand and served in the U. S. military as a bombardier during World War II. Returning from the war, he became involved in a number of left-wing political causes, some of them associated with the activities of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA).
In 1949, the FBI opened a domestic security investigation on Zinn (FBI File #100-360217). The Bureau noted Zinn’s activities in what were called Communist Front Groups and received informant reports that Zinn was an active member of the CPUSA; Zinn denied ever being a member when he was questioned by agents in the 1950s. In the 1960s, the Bureau took another look at Zinn on account of his criticism of the FBI’s civil rights investigations. Further investigation was made when Zinn traveled to North Vietnam with Daniel Berrigan as an anti-war activist. The investigation ended in 1974, and no further investigation into Zinn or his activities was made by the FBI.<ref>[http://www.fbi.gov/foia/electronic-reading-room/zinn-howard Howard Zinn FBI records]</ref>}}

However, the actual evidence for him being a card-carrying [[CPUSA]] member was quite slim, and Zinn was opposed to [[Soviet]] [[communism]], the association being mostly a result of his willingness to make common cause with communists on certain social and labor issues. If not a member of the party, he would instead have been what at the time was called a "[[pinko]]" or a "[[Useful idiot|fellow traveler]]." However, this minor complication did not stop [[wingnut]]s from wetting their pants with excitement and calling Zinn a commie when the FBI's file on him came out via a {{wpl|Freedom of Information Act (United States)|FOIA}} request.<ref group=note>[http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/vernon/100809 Here] and [http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jdboreing/2010/08/03/howard-zinn-hollywoods-favorite-communist-historian/ seriously, ''Hollywood's'' most famous historian?]</ref>

==Historical work==
===Views on bias in history===

As a socialist, Zinn did not believe that there could be such a thing as an objective, unbiased approach to history.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/us/28zinn.html Howard Zinn, Historian, Dies at 87], ''The New York Times''; [http://www.countercurrents.org/prasoon100210.htm "Howard Zinn: The Historian Who Changed The History"]</ref> His greatest concern with historical memory was not the distortion of fact by authorial bias, which he regarded as inevitable, but the wholesale elimination of facts which historians eliminated precisely because they could not be distorted to fit into their biased narratives.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMt7cFFKPeM Conversations with History: Howard Zinn], University of California</ref>

He wrote ''A People's History of the United States'' as a work of [[propaganda]], with the intent that it be read by people "beginning to take power within the institutions," inducing them to start a "quiet revolution."<ref>[http://web.archive.org/web/20010910144938/http://www.flagpole.com/Issues/02.18.98/lit.html Another interview with Zinn]</ref> On the first point it has been a success, making a few high school history reading lists; on the second, not so much.

He claimed that ''A People's History'' was an important work as the first textbook written from that perspective; as a historical work, in general, it was of course not terribly original, as Zinn could not be stuffed to utilize primary sources and borrowed most of its [[talking point]]s from Marxist historians such as Eugene D. Genovese, causing history professor Michael Kammen to liken it unto "a scissors and paste-pot job."<ref>"How the Other Half Lived," Book World, ''The Washington Post'', 23 March 1980.</ref> It does read rather like a [[CMI]] article in some places, blowing off a large number of historical works because they are not written by people whom the author counts to be on his side, and also featuring ellipsis-filled quotes from neutral or opposing sources but fuller quotes from sympathetic sources.{{fact}}

Zinn is often criticized for his biased approach, although since he is quite frank about his bias, this puts these critics in the ridiculous position of "exposing" bias everyone already knows about.

===Views on truth in history===
When the literary critic Walter Kirn attacked Zinn in the ''[[New York Times]]'' on account of ''A People's History'' being propaganda, insinuating that Zinn did not believe telling the [[truth]] to be the first goal of historians,<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/books/review/Kirn3-t.html Children’s Books], ''The New York Times''</ref> Zinn defended himself by stating his belief that [[Relativism|there is no such thing as objective truth]].<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/books/review/Letters-t-1.html Making History], ''The New York Times''</ref>

===''A People's History of the United States''===
''A People's History of the United States'' was first published in 1980<ref>''A People's History of the United States'' by Howard Zinn (1980) Harper & Row. ISBN 0060907924.</ref> with an updated edition published in 2003.<ref>''A People's History of the United States: 1492-2001'' by Howard Zinn (2003) Harper. ISBN 0060838655.</ref> The book is noteworthy for its opposition to the previously dominant form of US history, [[nationalism|nationalist]]-oriented [[great man theory]].<ref>''Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future'' by Jason Stanley (2024) One Signal Publishers / Atria. ISBN 9781668056912.</ref>{{rp|180-181}}

At Zinn's death, the history professor Eric Foner wrote of him:

{{quotebox|[[Friedrich Nietzsche]] once identified three approaches to the writing of history: the monumental, the antiquarian and the critical, the last being history "that judges and condemns." Howard Zinn, who died on January 27 at 87, wrote the third kind. Unlike many historians, he was not afraid to speak out about the difference between right and wrong.
...
I have long been struck by how many excellent students of history first had their passion for the past sparked by reading Howard Zinn. Sometimes, to be sure, his account tended toward the Manichaean, an oversimplified narrative of the battle between the forces of light and darkness. But A People's History taught an inspiring and salutary lesson — that despite all too frequent repression if America has a history to celebrate it lies in the social movements that have made this a better country. As for past heroes, Zinn insisted, one should look not to presidents or captains of industry but to radicals such as {{wpl|Frederick Douglass}}, {{wpl|Susan B. Anthony}} and [[Eugene V. Debs]].<ref>[http://www.ericfoner.com/articles/02222010nation.html Foner on Zinn]</ref>}}

What is meant by "Manichaean" is that Zinn responded to the [[tradition]]al apportionment of heroes and villains in grade-school history not by taking a more rounded and nuanced approach to the questions of heroism and [[morality]] but by simply recasting most of the heroes as villains (and, to a lesser extent, ''vice versa''), producing a work that is on the whole ''more'' essentialistic than the works it is intended to supplant.<ref group=note>Zinn goes so far as to state that [[Supreme Court]] justices would side against workers for no other reason than because they were born into the middle class; a statement that was questioned even by the publishers of a student's edition of the book.</ref> Several critics, including Foner himself in a positive review, objected to Zinn's ''very'' selective [[cherry-picking]] of incidents, which, Foner said, effectively caricatured such groups as [[African-Americans]] and [[working class|workers]] "either as rebels or as victims."{{fact}}

Zinn wrote from a broadly Marxist perspective of class struggle and economic determinism. But while much Marxist historical work — including [[Karl Marx]]'s own — simply involves analyzing tendencies without ascribing ulterior motives to individual players, Zinn did assign such motives. One of the central premises of ''A People's History'' is that the U.S. government has been, for the whole of its history, [[Oligarchy|controlled or influenced by self-interested oligarchs]] (Zinn labels the [[Founding Fathers]]<ref name="peoples-history">''A People's History''</ref>{{rp|59}} and the financier J.P. Morgan<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|258}} oligarchs) who played prominent roles in the [[American Revolution]],<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|59}} the [[Andrew Jackson|Jacksonian]] realignment,<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|217}} the [[American Civil War|Civil War]],<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|171-172, 198}} and the activities of most [[labor union]]s except the [[Wobblies]],<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|323,352}} in aid of [[False consciousness|duping the people]] so as to prevent a popular revolution. Of course, the anti-Communist US historian Oscar Handlin has called this internationally uncontroversial notion a [[Conspiracy theory| "deranged fairy tale"]], claiming that Zinn [[quote-mining|quote-mined]] sources and [[Lying by omission| omitted facts]].<ref group=note>No word on what he thinks of that [http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2014/04/24/gilens_and_page_find_that_rich_americans_rule_politics_but_despair_the_fact.html Princeton University study] which shows that the US government is essentially run by the rich.</ref>

Michael Kazin, writing in ''Dissent'' magazine, felt the book's intention praiseworthy but its execution poor. In particular, it refused to recognize the use of [[Useful idiot|actual ideologues who believed they were doing the right thing by serving oligarchic power]] (e.g. Southerners who genuinely believed that African chattel slavery was God's will), rather simply [[Straw man|assuming]] that "all [[right-wing]]ers really care about is keeping all the resources and power for themselves". He also consistently implied that people in the past would think in terms of labor relations (hating those who exploited them unless such hatred were diverted somewhere else by flummoxing) and that the [[9/11]] terrorists were primarily acting to change U.S. government policy, as opposed to acting against the entire U.S., or for the [[Islamist]] cause.<ref name="Kazin"/> Ironically, Zinn's obsessive focus on class warfare as the driving force behind all of American history leads him to ignore another popular Marxist concept for why capitalism remains in power: that of [[false consciousness]], the idea that people are led astray from the Red Light by things like [[religion]], ethnic nationalism, and other doctrines that go against communism. Not everybody places the same value on the relationship between the rich and the poor.

However, Professor {{wpl|Ibram X. Kendi}} states that racism in the United States does not originate organically, but is started and pushed by those at the top for their own economic, cultural, or political self interests. In this way, while many Southerners did genuinely believe they were doing the Lord's work to spread slavery, it was either out of their own self interest or through [[false consciousness|the power of propaganda]] to keep poor whites and black people from uniting in class solidarity. The two are not self-contradictory.<ref>https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/education/new-history-clarifies-the-workings-of-racism/</ref>

An illustrative example of Zinn's approach to history is this quote about U.S. President Jackson:

{{quotebox|If you look through high school textbooks and elementary school textbooks in American history, you will find Andrew Jackson the frontiersman, soldier, democrat, man of the people — not Jackson the slaveholder, land speculator, executioner of dissident soldiers, exterminator of Indians.<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|132}}}}

Hence, while ''A People's History'' serves as a good starting point for learning about the seedy underbelly of American history, it is at best highly incomplete and, taken as a whole, grossly inaccurate. One particular point of concern is that Zinn, in his inversion of heroes and villains, does some whitewashing of his own. One example is, as mentioned before, the positive portrayal of Ho Chi Minh; he positively cites a report that Ho had "eliminated landlord domination" without mentioning that he had done it by ''mass slaughter'' of the landlords.<ref>[https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam_landreform-20060608.html 50 Years On, Vietnamese Remember Land Reform Terror]. Radio Free Asia, 8 June 2006.</ref>

He also, in a 2005 addendum to the book, criticized the [[Bill Clinton]]-era "Crime Bill of 1996" (he actually meant the {{wpl|Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act|Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994}} but at that point was apparently not concerning himself with irrelevant details that only historians care about, such as correct names and dates) by claiming that around the time it passed, "violent crime continued to increase."<ref name="peoples-history"/>{{rp|647}} In reality, the violent [[crime]] rate in the U.S. at that time was in a free-fall that would see it decrease by 2005 to little more than half of its 1991 peak.<ref>{{wpl|File:Violent Crime Rates in the United States.svg|Graph of DOJ violent crime statistics, 1960-2007}}</ref>

On two occasions so far, in Indiana and Arkansas, state authorities have attempted across-the-board bans of ''A People's History'' from public classrooms.<ref>[https://rethinkingschoolsblog.com/2017/04/03/arkansas-howard-zinn-witch-hunt-fizzles/ Rethinking Schools, April 3, 2017]</ref>
And yet somehow, in spite of provoking the wrathful scrutiny of free-marketers and flag-wavers, the book managed to win the respect of many—maybe most—of Zinn's peers in the history field,<ref>[https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/september-2010/in-memoriam-howard-zinn Howard Zinn Memoriam from American Historical Association]</ref> and even highly critical scholars admit that ''A People's History'' was a necessary contribution when it first appeared in 1980.<ref>[https://news.stanford.edu/news/2012/december/wineburg-historiography-zinn-122012.html Stanford Report, December 20, 2012 "Zinn's influential history textbook has problems, says Stanford education expert"]</ref>

==Looking toward the future==
{{cquote|If we remember those times and places&nbsp;— and there are so many&nbsp;— where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.<br><br>
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.<ref>''You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times'' by Howard Zinn (1994) Beacon Press. ISBN 0807070580.</ref>{{rp|208}}}}

==See Also==
* ''[[Lies My Teacher Told Me]]'', which is heavily influenced by Zinn's work.

==External links==
* [https://www.quora.com/Howard-Zinn-Is-A-Peoples-History-of-the-United-States-entirely-accurate/answer/Murray-Godfrey Is ''A People's History of the United States'' accurate?] [[Quora]] answer by a Professor of U.S. History.

==Bibliography==
*Zinn, Howard, ''A People's History of the United States'', 20th Anniversary edition. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
* Zinn, Howard, ''A People's History of American Empire,'' a graphic history by Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, and Paul Buhle.  (2008) 

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|90%}}

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