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In reference to Tommy DeSeno's comment:
Today I called for Jim Keady to resign his City Council position, based I did not vote for Jim Keady, and I am not an apologist for him;
however, Tommy's post above, his web site's position on Keady, and his latest
triCity column all smack of McCarthyism to me.
Here is some information I culled from Amazon and Wikipedia.
============================================
Amazon's page for Zinn's book People's History of the
United States: 1492 to Present:
Average Amazon Customer Review: 4 Stars of possible 5 based
on 531 reviews.
Amazon.com Sales Rank: #367 among approximately 4,000,000 other books 60% of Amazon’s political action contributions go to Republicans (http://www.leadershipinstitute.org/pac/detailPAC.cfm?id=C00360354
), and here is Amazon’s own review of the book:
Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher,
historian, and social activist for more than 20 years--explains, "My point is
not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in
absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in
morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary
price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization;
Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us
all)--that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is
that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive
wastes are buried in containers in the earth."
If your last experience of American history was brought to you by junior
high school textbooks--or even if you're a specialist--get ready for the other
side of stories you may not even have heard. With its vivid descriptions of
rarely noted events, A People's History of the United States is required
reading for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at the rich, rocky history of
America.
========================================================== Excerpts from Customer Reviews: Good Scholarship, Worthwhile, September 24, 2001
I recommend the book with some reservations. Agree or disagree,
perspectives like Zinn's keep us from becoming ignorant victims of
ideological propaganda.
I recommend it because it is a great, well-informed, honest and self-conscious dissenting opinion. Anyone who wants to consider themselves educated needs to consider dissenting opinions frequently….Other reviewers seemed to assume that either communists or far-right conservatives aren't "students of history." But of course some are. Zinn and Newt Gingrich are both well-informed scholars. (If it matters to you, I am neither communist nor right-wing; I'm just not a political thinker. I'm American, and I think Americans--all of us--can be proud and thankful; but we should recognize that our government and politicians have never been perfect. Ideologies often serve to control people, so dissenting opinions are vital for freedom's perseverance. But democracy and moderated capitalism have often succeeded in blessing their people, while communism has evidently failed everywhere, with more gruesome histories even than capitalism.) ============================ AN INTRIGUING READ, NOTHING MORE NOTHING LESS, May 27, 2003 A quick look at the reviews for this book will tell you just how difficult
it is for a reader of Zinn's works to whistle and walk on. Either one ends up
savagely dismissing him as a petty cavalier, or extolling his brand of "eye
opening" wisdom. …. I recommend this book highly as a VIEW of historical events
that are difficult to deny occurred. Whether the guardians of the old order
spring into an attack or not this is bound to yank a lot of people (me included)
out of a languor of perspective. Not all books need to be read to be "liked".
Even a book that makes you constantly revulse in disagreement is worth a
read for that precise
reason.
=========================== An Important History, Well Written, October 9, 2006 This isn't the last and only history of America you'll ever read or need.
This is an addition to other texts, an important missing element in our
collective education. History used to be told from the point of view of the
winners, of the uplifted, and of the heroes. That is no longer the case and we
can thank Howard Zinn and this seminal work for that.
What makes People's History of the United States different is that it's
forward with its bias - this is told from the p.o.v. of the downtrodden and
embattled of society and it tells of their heroes who weren't battlefield
generals or blue-blood presidents, but instead they worked in factories or
toiled fields or attended town-square protests. This book is leftist,
sure, but within its pages you'll find that other history, official versions of
history, are slanted the other way, rightist, or rather 'might makes right'ist.
To hate this book is to ignore its scholarship and message in favor
of one's own idealogical bias. Don't you think that we need to incorporate all
sides into our education so that an informed decision and position arises free
of the shackles of ignorance? I do..... This book isn't anti-American
or unpatriotic, but instead it is the embodiment of all that is American and
patriotic because....
==================================
Definitely worth reading, a bit cumbersome at times, October 2, 2006 I am definitely not a socialist. Mr. Zinn is a (utopian) socialist, and he
makes no effort hiding this fact. He is also very blunt about saying, that his
world view determined the facts he decided to report about (of the
infinitely many facts, which constitute history.)
===================================== Different Worth for Different Folks, October 2, 2006 Those people of the ideological left will love this book and the those of the ideological right will hate it.... that is a given. American historiography has a broad tendency to degenerate into opposite truth camps of the right and left, mindlessly shouting out statistics, citing dates, supporting and dashing administrations to try to make a point. The entire pursuit of knowledge has been subverted by a kind of default to crude rhetoric for rhetoric's sake (see any American news programme or most prime-time columnists), and purile debate. Other countries and cultures shake their heads at such perversion of the whole idea of the way Americans understand history. So do historians such as Zinn add to this atrophy of the brain or do they
ameliorate it? I am not so sure I know the answer. I am thinking that his whole
style may betray an answer. Zinn's "radical" style is deliberately
unbalanced, he makes no apologies for this, it is an attempt to right the
largely unbalanced scales of history written by dominant elites, those who have
and hold the power. This is a worthy
ideal,….
============================================== Inspiring! , September 8, 2006 This book should be required reading for all high school students in the United States. ======================================== There is a very comprehensive entry for Howard Zinn at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn ), including a section on his critics, a link to the text of the entire book ( http://historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html ), and a link to a three hour interview on C-Span.
Today I called for Jim Keady to resign his City Council position, based
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