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A review by lord_tyronisis
A People's History of the United States: Highlights from the 20th Century by Howard Zinn
2.0
Note: this review can apply to both the full-text print version of the book as well as the audiobook that only has sections from the mid to late 20th century.
Howard Zinn is certainly a talented writer and a well informed historian, arguably one of the most influential historians of the last century. Howard Zinn’s book is one of the most (if not the most) assigned book in High School and College classrooms. There are over 2,000,000 copies of the book in circulation (I won two myself) and if one googles “Most popular history books,” Zinn is only edged out by Jared Diamond. Besides this, Zinn’s book is well known in popular culture with references to it directly in “Good Will Hunting” and “The Sopranos.” Zinn’s History Channel special featured actors like Viggo Mortenson. How many books are narrated by Matt Damon?
This popularity, for me, is part of the problem: it is very likely that the only history book any given American has read is Zinn’s record of American history. Some reviews on Goodreads have even recommended that “if you only read one history book, read this one.”
As many have pointed out, Zinn often brings up facts and evidence that are ignored by many historians. For this, Zinn’s work is laudable and very valuable. Indeed, whenever I need to criticize the United States, I know that I will find something in Zinn. I will not quibble with the facts that Zinn presents. What I will argue against is his persistent left-wing interpretation of those facts.
In teachers’ education there is the idea of the “null-curriculum;” the curriculum is everything you teach and talk about, the “null-curriculum” is everything you DON’T teach. In many ways, what you don’t teach is just as or even more important than what you do teach.
In a similar way, one can tell a lot about an author by what they leave out.
Zinn acknowledges this at the end of his book when he observes that historians need to make choices about what they include and what they discard. The problem for Zinn is that in his 600+ pages, the only things that are brought up are those things that support his overarching worldview, I.e. the United States is terrible in every way.
This is the major problem with Zinn’s work and with its popularity: there is very little nuance and very little acknowledgement of opposing viewpoints. Further, because most people don’t read or study history casually, most will swallow wholesale Zinn’s interpretation. Some even claim that Zinn’s work is “the real history.” Sam Wineburg in an article for the American Federation of Teachers writes that many of Zinn’s claims “ultimately derives its power from a single source: the expected ignorance of the reader.”
The more one learns about other interpretations, the more one can see the rather underhanded way Zinn presents facts.
There are many examples that I could draw upon to show how Zinn doesn’t tell the whole story in order to support his worldview. The most galling example for me is his treatment of the Vietnam War. Zinn hits the expected notes: Gulf of Tonkin, Agent Orange, My Lai, the protest movement. But in his attempts to show the United States as a brutal imperial power, he leaves out key details about the Viet Cong and North Vietnam.
Zinn writes about the Vietnamese Communists in glowing terms. He leaves out any discussion of the atrocities committed by the NVA or by the Viet Cong. Violence and intimidation against anyone who supported the South or did not adequately support the communists. The Viet Cong death squads who murdered thousands following the failure of the Tet Offensive. There is no discussion of the totalitarian nature of Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam, the torture and indoctrination and executions and censorship. There is a lot of discussion about the protests against the Diem Regime. But there is no discussion of the fact that at least South Vietnam ALLOWED protests. The North did not allow any such protest. There is no discussion of the terror that many in the south felt in 1975 as the communists rushed south, taking Saigon. There is no discussion of the Boat People, 2,000,000 Vietnamese who desperately fled their homeland in the wake of the communist takeover. There is no discussion of the nearly 3,000,000 people the Communists liquidated and murdered (at least 1,000,000 of which occurred after 1975).
There is no discussion of any of this because it does not support Zinn’s argument, therefore he is silent. Similarly, Zinn is continuously silent about the crimes of other Communist regimes. This connects directly to Zinn’s continuous moral equivalency, his endeavor to paint the United States as just as bad as the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.
Furthermore, throughout his book Zinn engages in a number of blatant contradictions. Zinn is very pro-democracy; until the majority of Americans support the Gulf War. Zinn is very anti-nationalism; unless a nationalist group is opposing the United States. Zinn is anti-violence; unless he is praising the likes of the Black Panthers. Zinn is anti-government; unless it is engaging in massively expensive welfare schemes. The list goes on.
Furthermore, Zinn states that his book is critical and skeptical of states, of governments and “great men.” Fair enough, but throughout his book Zinn conflates the civil society with the government. He often criticizes aspects of American culture, corporations, and the free market as if they are one and the same with the government or government policy.
Furthermore, Zinn’s quasi-Marxist economic analyses are laughable at best. In one example, in order to demonstrate how African Americans were left out economically, Zinn compares the incomes of Mowtown Records and Exxon-Mobile, as if it proved anything. For one thing, the two industries are wildly different from one another. For another, Zinn is leaving out the key fact that most businesses fail. So while the black owned Motown Records was thriving, there were likely hundreds of other white owned businesses that failed.
Further, Zinn attempts to paint a picture of ever present and grinding poverty, an economy where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But every statistical indicator contradicts this perception. Indeed, the average income of many European countries is at or below the poverty line in the US. The average American is far wealthier than any other person in the world and is only improving. All over the world, the lot of every day people is improving; all thanks to the economic system Zinn hates. Indeed, the economic system that Zinn prefers has only resulted in bankruptcy, poverty, tyranny, and death. But Zinn never discusses any of these things. For Zinn, his way is the only way.
I am not alone in these criticisms, even liberals have criticized Zinn’s work along these same grounds.
Zinn "renounces the ideals of objectivity and empirical responsibility, and makes the dubious leap to the notion that a historian need only lay his ideological cards on the table and tell whatever history he chooses," Greenberg writes in the liberal magazine “The New Republic.”
American Federation of Teachers: “It seems that once (Zinn) made up his mind, nothing—not new evidence, not new scholarship, not the discovery of previously unknown documents, not the revelations of historical actors on their deathbeds—could shake it," Wineburg wrote. He added that "history as truth, issued from the left or from the right, abhors shades of gray. It seeks to stamp out the democratic insight that people of good will can see the same thing and come to different conclusions same thing and come to different conclusions."
In the end, the book has a lot of valuable information that should not be overlooked. But if you read the book, please read at least one other history book as well.
https://www.aft.org/periodical/american-educator/winter-2012-2013/undue-certainty
https://www.google.com/search?q=most+popular+history+books&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS788US788&oq=most+popular+history+books&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.5515j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#wgvs=e
https://newrepublic.com/article/112574/howard-zinns-influential-mutilations-american-history
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB16A.1.GIF
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold#United_States
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty
Howard Zinn is certainly a talented writer and a well informed historian, arguably one of the most influential historians of the last century. Howard Zinn’s book is one of the most (if not the most) assigned book in High School and College classrooms. There are over 2,000,000 copies of the book in circulation (I won two myself) and if one googles “Most popular history books,” Zinn is only edged out by Jared Diamond. Besides this, Zinn’s book is well known in popular culture with references to it directly in “Good Will Hunting” and “The Sopranos.” Zinn’s History Channel special featured actors like Viggo Mortenson. How many books are narrated by Matt Damon?
This popularity, for me, is part of the problem: it is very likely that the only history book any given American has read is Zinn’s record of American history. Some reviews on Goodreads have even recommended that “if you only read one history book, read this one.”
As many have pointed out, Zinn often brings up facts and evidence that are ignored by many historians. For this, Zinn’s work is laudable and very valuable. Indeed, whenever I need to criticize the United States, I know that I will find something in Zinn. I will not quibble with the facts that Zinn presents. What I will argue against is his persistent left-wing interpretation of those facts.
In teachers’ education there is the idea of the “null-curriculum;” the curriculum is everything you teach and talk about, the “null-curriculum” is everything you DON’T teach. In many ways, what you don’t teach is just as or even more important than what you do teach.
In a similar way, one can tell a lot about an author by what they leave out.
Zinn acknowledges this at the end of his book when he observes that historians need to make choices about what they include and what they discard. The problem for Zinn is that in his 600+ pages, the only things that are brought up are those things that support his overarching worldview, I.e. the United States is terrible in every way.
This is the major problem with Zinn’s work and with its popularity: there is very little nuance and very little acknowledgement of opposing viewpoints. Further, because most people don’t read or study history casually, most will swallow wholesale Zinn’s interpretation. Some even claim that Zinn’s work is “the real history.” Sam Wineburg in an article for the American Federation of Teachers writes that many of Zinn’s claims “ultimately derives its power from a single source: the expected ignorance of the reader.”
The more one learns about other interpretations, the more one can see the rather underhanded way Zinn presents facts.
There are many examples that I could draw upon to show how Zinn doesn’t tell the whole story in order to support his worldview. The most galling example for me is his treatment of the Vietnam War. Zinn hits the expected notes: Gulf of Tonkin, Agent Orange, My Lai, the protest movement. But in his attempts to show the United States as a brutal imperial power, he leaves out key details about the Viet Cong and North Vietnam.
Zinn writes about the Vietnamese Communists in glowing terms. He leaves out any discussion of the atrocities committed by the NVA or by the Viet Cong. Violence and intimidation against anyone who supported the South or did not adequately support the communists. The Viet Cong death squads who murdered thousands following the failure of the Tet Offensive. There is no discussion of the totalitarian nature of Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam, the torture and indoctrination and executions and censorship. There is a lot of discussion about the protests against the Diem Regime. But there is no discussion of the fact that at least South Vietnam ALLOWED protests. The North did not allow any such protest. There is no discussion of the terror that many in the south felt in 1975 as the communists rushed south, taking Saigon. There is no discussion of the Boat People, 2,000,000 Vietnamese who desperately fled their homeland in the wake of the communist takeover. There is no discussion of the nearly 3,000,000 people the Communists liquidated and murdered (at least 1,000,000 of which occurred after 1975).
There is no discussion of any of this because it does not support Zinn’s argument, therefore he is silent. Similarly, Zinn is continuously silent about the crimes of other Communist regimes. This connects directly to Zinn’s continuous moral equivalency, his endeavor to paint the United States as just as bad as the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany.
Furthermore, throughout his book Zinn engages in a number of blatant contradictions. Zinn is very pro-democracy; until the majority of Americans support the Gulf War. Zinn is very anti-nationalism; unless a nationalist group is opposing the United States. Zinn is anti-violence; unless he is praising the likes of the Black Panthers. Zinn is anti-government; unless it is engaging in massively expensive welfare schemes. The list goes on.
Furthermore, Zinn states that his book is critical and skeptical of states, of governments and “great men.” Fair enough, but throughout his book Zinn conflates the civil society with the government. He often criticizes aspects of American culture, corporations, and the free market as if they are one and the same with the government or government policy.
Furthermore, Zinn’s quasi-Marxist economic analyses are laughable at best. In one example, in order to demonstrate how African Americans were left out economically, Zinn compares the incomes of Mowtown Records and Exxon-Mobile, as if it proved anything. For one thing, the two industries are wildly different from one another. For another, Zinn is leaving out the key fact that most businesses fail. So while the black owned Motown Records was thriving, there were likely hundreds of other white owned businesses that failed.
Further, Zinn attempts to paint a picture of ever present and grinding poverty, an economy where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. But every statistical indicator contradicts this perception. Indeed, the average income of many European countries is at or below the poverty line in the US. The average American is far wealthier than any other person in the world and is only improving. All over the world, the lot of every day people is improving; all thanks to the economic system Zinn hates. Indeed, the economic system that Zinn prefers has only resulted in bankruptcy, poverty, tyranny, and death. But Zinn never discusses any of these things. For Zinn, his way is the only way.
I am not alone in these criticisms, even liberals have criticized Zinn’s work along these same grounds.
Zinn "renounces the ideals of objectivity and empirical responsibility, and makes the dubious leap to the notion that a historian need only lay his ideological cards on the table and tell whatever history he chooses," Greenberg writes in the liberal magazine “The New Republic.”
American Federation of Teachers: “It seems that once (Zinn) made up his mind, nothing—not new evidence, not new scholarship, not the discovery of previously unknown documents, not the revelations of historical actors on their deathbeds—could shake it," Wineburg wrote. He added that "history as truth, issued from the left or from the right, abhors shades of gray. It seeks to stamp out the democratic insight that people of good will can see the same thing and come to different conclusions same thing and come to different conclusions."
In the end, the book has a lot of valuable information that should not be overlooked. But if you read the book, please read at least one other history book as well.
https://www.aft.org/periodical/american-educator/winter-2012-2013/undue-certainty
https://www.google.com/search?q=most+popular+history+books&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS788US788&oq=most+popular+history+books&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.5515j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#wgvs=e
https://newrepublic.com/article/112574/howard-zinns-influential-mutilations-american-history
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB16A.1.GIF
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold#United_States
https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty