Wednesday, January 27, 2010

RIP, Howard Zinn: A true giant of truthfulness is gone.

Twelve years ago, I bought Zinn's seminal work from an Dallas airport book store while waiting out a weather delay, and had a couple hundred pages under my belt before we got back to Louisvillelle. Zinn's book was a page turner, and he was a paradigm shifter. We may not see his likes again.

Social historian Howard Zinn has died(LA Times blog)

Howard Zinn, the author of "A People's History of the United States" and several other books, has died.

11 comments:

  1. Bloomington, '91. Same deal. Damn.

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  2. He's one of two people I've always wanted to see speak..."Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" will always be one of my favorite books.

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  3. I bought A People's History of the United States either my Freshman or Sophomore year in High School. I've probably reread it 5 or 6 times since

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  4. Terrific obit in The Nation...here's part of it that is incredibly relevant to NAC.

    "Howard Zinn taught millions of us a simple lesson: Agitate. Agitate. Agitate. But never lose your sense of humor in the process. It's a beautiful legacy and however much it hurts to lose him, we should strive to build on Howard's work and go out and make some history."

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  5. "Agitate. Agitate. Agitate. But never lose your sense of humor in the process."

    The Zinn's are our neighbors and I've been a friend of his son Jeff's for years. Big loss Howard...

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  6. p.s. Robert Hatch, founding editor of The Nation, was a friend of Howards.

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  7. Zinn also inspired a small collection of "a people's history of" books, some of which are excellent history (A People's History of the Supreme Court - Peter Irons - being one).

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  8. Zinn, is this the well balenced understanding of history that you accuess me of not reading?

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  9. I don't know why anyone would accuse you of not reading it, but it's certainly a well thought out and researched history of our country that you won't find in your 11th grade history class.

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  10. One of the things I always appreciated about Zinn was that he openly admitted some bias as a result of only looking from one side. His argument, though, that such work was needed because almost all the other sources looked from only the other side, was so compelling because it was true.

    Most of us were fed a lot of unexplicated crap in those high school history classes.

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  11. "Most of us were fed a lot of unexplicated crap in those high school history classes."

    Maybe things are better in Indiana now, it's only evolution that isn't taught.

    Although, as a local agitator and history re-writer myself, in truth, there isn't much interest locally in history or science, period.

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