Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Clarification on RIP Howard Zinn

Looking at last week's post, anyone in my small audience who has read "A People's History..." might get the impression that I missed the point of Howard Zinn's seminal work. In my post, I only talked about the "dark side" of certain U.S. presidents. While Zinn goes into such territory, his focus is really on the struggles of the poor and working class groups and individuals. The girls of Lowell, the striking miners in Ludlow: these are the kinds of stories with which he wishes to acquaint his readers. I still like what I wrote because it was honest and fit in quite well with a new discpline that I am trying to acquant myself with. But, Howard Zinn was not simply trying to air the dirty laundry of the executive branch of the federal government. As I said in my earlier post, American history is too expansive for such a narrow evaluation.

Now that this is out of the way, I look forward to expounding on topics with which I have less of an emotional connection. I'll be back some time before the Super Bowl starts to submit my newest entry in time for Monday's deadline.

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