Undue Certainty: Where Howard Zinn's a People's History Falls Short (2012) [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Undue Certainty: Where Howard Zinn's a People's History Falls Short (2012) [pdf]

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62 pointstokenadult18 comments

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

> 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.

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.

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

It takes a while for the effects to bubble up.

Assume that the children taught with this book were 15-18 years old. Add 30 years to that, and you get ... 45 - 48. Prime time to enter politics.

So, if the effects are going to be seen, they should start hitting right about now.

Books probably don't influence people's understanding of history all that much. It's pretty unusual for people to read nonfiction at all, much less history.

> 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?

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