Haymarket Books' Twitter account reminded me that today is the 100th birthday of Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States.
I can't remember what year it was when I first learned that there was organized push-back against Zinn's book. I'm not sure if it was after I started this blog in late 2007, which there means it was most likely during the Obama years, or before. I do remember that I was surprised, because the facts in the book seem so unassailable to me.
But given everything that has happened since, it now seems like a bellwether for the backlash we have been living through.
I recently finished Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, which is a good companion to A People's History. I hope to write a post about it soon.
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I see I've only mentioned A People's History once before. Here's that post.
I never met Howard Zinn, but I had a long-term e-mail friendship with him while I was working on an opera based on his play EMMA, about Emma Goldman. He lived a few miles from my father, but he was always away when we were in Boston on our summer visits there.
ReplyDeleteWow, very cool!
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