American History

» pink101 - Clarification for EVERYONE

In response to Clarification for EVERYONE posted by BrianTubbs:
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My beef with Zinn is HOW he does what he does, not the fact that he does it.
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I'm reading three history books at the present time by three different authors; Fischer, Jacoby, and Zinn. They all seem to do things pretty much the same way using a time line.
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What is there about the "HOW he does what he does" that causes you to have such a strong beef with him. There are over a hundred posts in this thread, and you--mostly--seem opposed to Zinn in a very strong way to diss him as an historian. To me, he seems to give a pretty clear view from an ordinary person's point of view. Most people are ordinary and only a very few are special.
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From post # 9, Brian's:
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"Zinn makes no real effort - NONE - to present the various sides. He is more advocate than historian, cheering the labor classes and the under classes along all the way through the book. It's the People vs. the Government, the People vs. Big Business. And, of course, his idea of the "People" is completely and TOTALLY class-based and/or race-based.

"Yes, Pink, that's a skewed portrait of America. It IS most certainly a misrepresentation, and a dangerous one at that."
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heh heh heh. Come on, Brian, that would be funny if it weren't so sad. At the present time, the "upper crust" is dealing some crippling blows at the growing lower class in America. These "free trade" policies are aimed directly at America's lower social strata and that fight has been going on for a long, long time. That's a major problem with the "main man" idea of history as it attempts to discount the efforts put out by people who work just to stay alive. And, the instances of that struggle are not few and far between. Today, I heard that upwards of one million--that's 1,000,000--mortgage foreclosures will be accomplished in the near future as home owners are evicted for not being able to make payments on their homes. I suppose it is their fault for having bought a home that now is worth less than they owe on it? Men and women who took home $50,000.00 to $75,000.00 a year have lost their jobs as a result of union busting strategies. They cannot afford the life style they had built. Now, they're taking jobs at poverty levels doing menial tasks and "Guest Worker" programs are promoted to continue the union busting activities of big money. Zinn makes sure the reader gets a good handle on the situation the working man, woman and child struggled with for so long.
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-- posted by pink101