
Undue Certainty: Where Howard Zinn's a People's History Falls Short (2012) [pdf] - tokenadult
https://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Wineburg.pdf
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azernik
I absolutely agree with the criticisms of this book. I do, however, think it
was a good idea to include in school curricula, precisely because the other
history textbooks student are presented with have a different set of biases
and implied modes of thought. Seeing the two side by side can reduce students'
blind faith in the narrative presented to them by authoritative sources.

The problem is when teachers set up Zinn as the "real" authority. In my
(admittedly AP) class, we used both Zinn and a standard textbook, and were
warned that both had agendas and biases. If a student is taught that Zinn and
his flawed, confirmation-bias-ridden methods are "real history", then we have
problems.

~~~
tikhonj
Different sides are great, but at least in my AP US class, the actual textbook
we used had biases pretty similar, or at least in a similar direction, to
Zinn, if I'm recalling it correctly. (Despite doing well in that class, I
don't remember many details from the book, but that was definitely my
impression at the time. Also, my comparison to Zinn is limited to reading
_part_ of his book in an earlier class; I haven't read all of it.)

~~~
azernik
Ah. Interesting. Maybe my teacher was just particularly good at picking
contrasting material.

In our non-Zinn textbook, there were semi-hagiographies of each president as
they showed up (including, funnily, a mention of the _height_ of every single
one), as well as some interpretations of US policy decisions (e.g. the
Mexican-American war) that bent over backwards to give the benefit of the
doubt to politicians who were likely very aware of what they were doing.
Things like its unequivocal endorsement of the nuclear bombing of Japan, for
instance, were nicely offset by Zinn's unequivocal condemnation.

~~~
_delirium
That's also how I remember the standard U.S. History textbooks (which were the
only ones, we definitely didn't use Zinn). Fairly patriotic tone, lots of
focus on important presidents, all generally presented positively. Most of the
labor/populist stuff was skipped or glossed over. William Jennings Bryan did
get a mention (mostly in the context of a silver vs. gold standard debate that
just seemed confusing to me at the time), but you wouldn't learn who Bill
Haywood or Eugene Debs were, or why they once had a lot of supporters, or that
the "labor wars" included decades of intermittent violence and actual pitched
battles (e.g., the Battle of Blair Mountain). Even World War I was more
heroic-Allied-victory than tragic-waste-of-lives in tone. There were some
exceptions to the general approach: the oppression of black Americans was
covered in some detail, during both the slavery and Jim Crow eras, as was
Indian removal.

I did go to high school in Texas, though, which has made a deliberate effort
to keep a "pro-American" tone in their textbooks.

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ComputerGuru
No mention of James Loewen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me," which fills in some of
the blanks they mention in Zinn's narrative, overflowing with both footnotes
and primary sources, going out of its way to point out alternate explanations
and the reasoning behind the author's deductions and conclusions.

Edit: Loewen makes no claim that his book is by any means a history book and
outright states that he does not intend to cover everything, but I personally
feel that the issues he does cover are treated considerably more fairly, even
if he makes no secret of which side of history he comes down on. He also feels
like he has less of an axe to grind with the United States as a country and
government as compared to Zinn, coming across as being more against certain
persons or policies that have been (in his opinion) incorrectly hero-
worshipped or whitewashed by traditional history books.

~~~
gyardley
Well, no, but that's probably because 'Lies My Teacher Told Me' is by a
completely different author. That book commits its own sins, primarily ones of
omission, but agreed, it's far better than Zinn's 800-page Manichean screed.

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Absentinsomniac
I agree with this analysis, while I agree with the thrust of the book,
sometimes when trying to do in-depth research on some of the topics, it seemed
to me as though some of the sources were a bit dubious and/or hard to come by.
I still liked the book and feel it's very instructive, but I took some of the
detailed work with a healthy pinch of skepticism.

There's some other books that I've felt the same about, like sociopath society
by Charles Derber. While the overall thrust is interesting, upon looking
further into some of the claims, it was pretty hard to square all of the
details with what was written. Either I wasn't privy to the same sources or
first hand accounts, or some of it was a stretch from some alternative
sources.

If I ever get time I'd love to do a detailed review of the facts vs. other
published accounts of some of the specifics in both of these and other books.

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InTheArena
Just a note, no historian of any note takes Howard Zinn seriously, other then
from a political science point of view (similarly Stephen Ambrose is not held
in regard).

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RodericDay
> But in the last 30 years, during which A People’s History has arguably had a
> greater influence on how Americans understand their past than any other
> single book, normally voluble scholars have gone silent.

This doesn't ring true at all. If the influence of People's History was as
large as this author suggests, America would be nowhere as jingoistic as it is
today.

~~~
danso
The claim doesn't necessarily mean that it has dominated interpretation of
American history, just that it "arguably had a _greater_ influence...than any
other _single book_ ". Much of how we think of American history is still
influenced by school curriculum (i.e. textbooks). After school, we're still
influenced, even if only subconsciously in the way we're influenced by Coca-
Cola ads, by decades of traditions and status quo interpretation. The fact
that Columbus Day is celebrated as a federal holiday -- and that many of us
get the day off -- is going to be a persistent influence to the average
American, including those who vote.

~~~
Avshalom
Even still Guns, Germs and Steel probably beats it handily.

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obrero
> The Japanese were still trying to barter with the Soviets, going so far as
> to offer Manchuria and southern Karafuto...The Soviets snubbed the emperor's
> request to send his special emissary, Fumimaro Konoe, to Moscow because
> Tokyo's surrender condition remained too "opaque". Reader of Zinn's account
> learn nothing of this broader context.

Readers of _Zinn 's_ account learn nothing of this broader context? _What_ US
high school textbook goes into any of this? The answer is none. It's a laugh
that Zinn is accused of not addressing some Soviet/Japanese negotiation with
Fumimaro Konoe as some kind of unique shortcoming. No one discusses this,
except in very specific post-grad type historical work.

I mean, the US is so US-focused, you never hear mentioned even things which
aren't really controversial. Like that one of the main worries on Stalin's
mind when Operation Barbarossa commenced was that the Asian Axis would attack
Russia from the East. But due to diplomacy, other concerns for Japan etc., it
didn't happen. In fact, Soviet ships used to sail with Soviet flags from
Vladisvostock to the US West Coast and safely bring supplies in, during a time
that the Atlantic ocean was patrolled by German submarines. 99% of Americans
aren't aware of this, never mind more minute concerns about specific last
minute negotiations between the Japanese and some other country. Wineburg
himself is being crafty about this.

Also - Julius Rosenberg was arrested for being an atomic spy, and then his
wife Ethel Rosenberg was arrested to put pressure on Julius. Both were
executed. Wineburg himself is guilty of leaving out evidence - we know now
that physicists like Klaus Fuchs, Ted Hall etc. were the atomic spies, not the
housewife from the Lower East Side who was executed for it, orphaning her
children. Even FBI agents who were on the case nowadays say there was not
evidence to link her to atomic spying. Wineburg also does not mention that
Sobell said that even Julius was not involved in atomic spying. So who is
being selective about facts? If Zinn isn't fleshing out new evidence in a book
written many years ago, why is Wineburg leaving out important information he
already had, since he referenced it?

