By the time A People’s History of the United States was published, I had left Boston University, but Zinn remained my friend and we talked frequently. For me, he provided a kind of moral compass; I always wanted to know what he thought before coming to my own political conclusions. So I read A People’s History eagerly. As readers probably know, the book tells part of the story of the American past as a series of spotlights on episodes of popular struggle. It remains an astonishing success, selling more than two million copies, used as a text in high school and undergraduate courses, and spawning a cottage industry of “people’s histories” from below. Not surprisingly, some school boards have objected. And a number of historians, including historians on the left, have also been sharply critical. In the main, the complaints are about what Zinn did not do. He told the story of common people in struggle, but he failed to tell the story of the elites who responded to them. Or he failed to explain how elites changed over the course of American history. Or by spotlighting moments of struggle, he failed to fill the promise of the title: to give us a coherent narrative history. I do not share these complaints. I believe that Zinn’s ambition was not to enter the academic lists with a comprehensive history but to perform a much-needed political and historical service by shifting our focus from the top of American society to the bottom, by giving the common people their due in the story of the United States. Still, I had a criticism too. I took for granted that Zinn wanted to inspire his readers, to make them appreciate the activists of the past and to encourage them to join in struggles in our own time to remake the world. But his accounts of historical protests rarely end in victory. Or the victory is tainted by co-optation. Or it is so small as to mock the aspirations of those who fought for it. To inspire, I said, you have to talk about the victories. I was not asking for bad or distorted history. Rather I thought the history of a densely complicated society is also complicated, and the consequences of popular struggles are therefore complex. But no matter, I was wrong. Howard Zinn’s writing, including A People’s History, and including the essays in Some Truths Are Not Self-Evident, do inspire people, not because they promise victories for popular struggles, but because they depict so vividly the purpose and even the joy of a political life.
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 03:52:18 +0000
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