Reply #35: Zinn's value is as a revisionist historian, not as a pure truth-teller [View All]

[IrateCitizen]

And by the term "revisionist," I am speaking in purely the historian sense. It doesn't mean he makes shit up -- it means that he puts a completely different "spin" on the events of the time and forces people to reconsider past events from a different perspective. This is an extremely valuable service.

Zinn does a great job at exposing the way that the political sphere has usually come down on the side of "property-holders" and that we often ignore the uglier side of our history. However, it is good to recognize that he takes this view to a bit of an extreme and presents everything as if it were some grand collaboration every step of the way. In some instances (Bacon's Rebellion is one that comes to mind), it results in some rather slopping scholarship.

Now, if you're interested in some reasons why what you hope for in the last paragraph won't happen, I'd suggest you start with the seminal essay "The Significance of the Frontier in American History" by Frederick Jackson Turner. A prime facet of the American persona is an extreme distrust of government, for a number of historical reasons -- which is why we cannot put our faith in national government solving these problems for us. Furthermore, I believe such a hope of some populist messiah goes against the theme of Zinn's work, which is that popular struggle from BELOW is what moves mountains.