R.I.P. Howard Zinn
One of the most inspiring political scientists and social activist has passed away just a couple of days ago. And I must admit, despite his living to age 87, I’m a bit bummed out upon hearing the news.
Howard Zinn was an American historian that I discovered through a short lived friendship well over a decade ago. I often credit Zinn with paving the way for my political consciousness to evolve beyond just knowing the facts of history but to also understand how to ask important questions as to better understand “why” something in history has happened (or was happening) and to connect the dots to it’s ultimate relevance in our own daily lives.
What also maintained my attraction early on with his work was the sense of validation it held for me. Validation that I wasn’t the only one who thought the telling of history often depends on one’s point of view. That history isn’t a boring subject at all to discuss, and quite often it’s earnest study helps to shed light on the other forces at play while trying to grasp what is going on in the world. And that certainly all of us need to be historians in our own, yet seemingly small way to help tell a more complete story of how our society functions and has come to be.
As tribute to the person that I have learned a lot from over the years I’m compiling a truncated assortment of an audio lecture from his book “A People’s History of the United States“ below for your enjoyment. It’s how I initially stumbled upon his work and maybe you too might find it insightful, if not inspiring as well. Enjoy.
Click on audio player to listen to the 16 minute playlist; you can skip between tracks:
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Also, watch this interview of Howard Zinn when you have a chance as he has some good talking points on Barack Obama, John McCain, 3rd party candidates, civil disobediencee and the need for direct action:
And lastly, some other videos (via YouTube) of Howard Zinn that are also worthwhile to take a look at:
— Interview by Harry Kreisler
— Discussing his thoughts on aggression and human nature
— Taxes and Class War
He was one of the greats. Respect.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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That book was mandatory reading in a number of my history classes, plus almost every Poli Sci class I had for the first couple of years in college. I loved the book and it was awesome that every freaking teacher seemed to make it mandatory reading, so I only had to get it down once and got to cruise in the other classes. The ironic thing that these teachers didn’t pick up is that by all of these teachers assigning the same material went against the primary thesis of the book. You need a bunch of perspectives: from the people, the leaders, the historians, and then you can get a better idea of what may have happened. It’s never black and white, and a whole bunch of gray. Of course, whenever I tried to apply revisionist history to events of what caused WWI (did the Germans really cause it?), they didn’t appreciate my effort because it went against their perspective. Of course the Germans caused the war, but my efforts to cite the perspectives from the other side to piece together a justification for escalating a war should’ve deservered more than a B.
A great book, too bad all the hippie academics take everything as the “truth” from the pages instead of picking up the main message that there’s always many sides to a story.
Hey,
Who game me that emoticon? When are you going to clean up your janky site Jamie?
That “Avatar” is automatically generated. But if you prefer to use a different one then go to Gravatar.com to create a custom account with the email you used above. It’s a free service and painless to use. Word.
(and the post-”janky” website is coming sooner than you realize
)
Hey Chad, so you’re still salty over that “B” in poli-sci class, eh? Who knew you were such a radical. Ha!
You’re spot on about the need to actively self look into multiple perspectives to get a grip on the bigger scope of events and it’s causes. Problem is most of the time history is taught in an uninteresting way, especially if you’re in the minority groups of America. I never heard of Zinn’s book until AFTER college. But I was lucky to have had some really good history teachers in grade school (Mr. Jones in 7th grade, represent!) that helped me understand that there is AT LEAST two sides to every story, if not more.
Another book I really enjoyed reading some time ago was “Lies My Teacher Told Me“ by James W. Loewen. Good stuff there and a speedy read to boot.
I cannot believe I have never heard of him…as this sounds exactly like my mode of thinking.
Gotta find some time to sit down and listen to all the links as I see he will be my new inspiration.