Just as an aside, I find it telling that the review which you liked best was, out of 537 reviews of the book, written by someone that liked Zinn's book the least. While most reviewers gave this book 4 out of 5 stars, Szasz gave it 1.

I also found it interesting to note that when the reviewer rated books on history, he tended to like books dealing with military history the best. In fact the majority of the books he rated (182) had to do with military history. One must wonder why he even picked up Zinn's book, much less read it.

If the reviewer is looking for historical accuracy and objectivity, I find it odd that he only seems to read historical texts devoted to war....

As long as Zinn makes no pretenses of being objective, I don’t really have a problem. However, there are apparently people who take this work to be the complete account of American history. Reading through some of the reviews shows that a few people are not applying any skepticism and taking this text as some unveiling of history’s “hidden truth,” whereas it is only a portion of history.

Is it necessary to move to the complete opposite of a spectrum in order to show a different perspective, though? I don’t believe so. As I said, I don’t have a problem with the book since Zinn apparently warned his readers that his work is not the complete story, but just a piece of it not found in many other texts.

Instead of meeting diatribe with diatribe, it would be best to aim for the truth, wouldn’t you say? I guess it could be argued that Zinn is and is not aiming for truth; on one hand, he is trying to tell the other side of American history, but on the other hand, he is intentionally biased in doing so. You don’t have to “force” an issue that is allegedly forgotten by history—merely by describing the event itself in writing is preserving the issue. Adding a slant to it is unnecessary, I believe.

This sentence could be applied to Zinn’s work, apparently. Or is he in the right because took sides with the “little guy”?

You appear to be against spin if it is orchestrated by the “elitists,” but if the spin is against the elitists, then it is good? I personally prefer NO spin—if the oppressors are so sinister and evil, then their nature should be quite apparent without any intentionally bias, right?

And I never claimed that he claimed it was.

I have a feeling you wrote this sentence with more of a desire for effect than accuracy, for it does not make much sense to me. Do you mean to say that his objective was to prove that mainstream history is not credible? Because “mainstream history” is not necessarily “credible history.”

Telling in what way? I’ve noticed that many of the higher reviews of any book are just a few sentences of praise, with no hint of flaw whatsoever. While looking through reviews of various books I’m interested in, I came across a very good tip: look for the lower reviews. Sift through them for the lengthy, reasonable critiques, not the rants from people that simply disagree with a position. These lower-rating critics generally give the best reviews of a text.

A bit presumptuous, aren’t we? Just by his Amazon reviews, you know that “he only seems to read historical texts devoted to war”? Also, where does it say that the majority of the books he rated has to do with military history?

Also, like it or not, but military history is human history. Our entire past up to the present has been an arms race, essentially. I don't see why you imply military history to be inherently inaccurate or subjective any moreso than other genres of history.

__________________
No man is an island...
Each man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in Mankind.
And therefore, never send to know
For whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
—John Donne

There will always be people who take things at face value at both ends of the spectrum. Not everyone has the ability to think or read as crititically as need requires, myself included. While there is some validity to your complaint that Zinn rallies too strongly against the elitist history which has been accepted as credible, I find no problem with his presenting a slanted view.

It is the responsibility of the mainstream historian and the reader to interpret what has been offered. I think it unhealthy to present history as a mashed pap of theories and opinions because it leaves no room for critical analysis. In presenting yet another version of pap, we are taking away the need for the reader to interact with what he reads and leaving him with another slightly tarnished version of the truth.

Whose truth? And for what length of time? Until the next bits of mangled history get sorted through and shoved into meaningless perspective amongst a heap of extraneous facts in the third paragraph section four chapter 13 of your updated version of mainstream history text?

And as to your statement about people, "taking the text as an unveiling of history’s “hidden truth,” whereas it is only a portion of history", I don't agree. Yes, it is only a portion of history. But it's a part of history that will change the way we view certain key events in the course of time, and that is vastly different from learning a few stray facts that are interesting but unimportant to how we view the outcome. It changes the emotional dynamics of our political history, lets us see the social cost of policy decisions, let's us view how we react to the present war with more apathy than outrage.

Zinn is a reactionary, granted. He wanted to foment some outrage over our passive acceptance of "credible" history, to provoke discussion of the facts that have been "forgotten", to entice some critical analysis of the package instead of wrapping it up in some pretty synopses of the whole made to be swallowed acceptingly by the masses.

He wanted us to start thinking for ourselves, asking questions, doing our own critical analysis, involving ourselves in the unfolding of the events instead of sitting on our arses and being spoon fed the latest version of historical swill. For this I applaud him.

You just love that word diatribe. It means, in a sense, a harshly critical analysis. It is what historians do. They gather all the material they can find, and give it different weights and measures. Zinn is analysing history from a social perspective; one that has been known but not addressed, written off as unimportant. He is merely saying, "hey, this is important, pay attention."

He is forcing us to consider the implications of certain events under a new light, because up until this time it has not been enough to describe the facts in a peer journal or essay, where it is shuffled around in a dusty library. Zinn is picking it off the dusty shelf and asking us, why is this being ignored?

What is truth? That is what we are arguing. Who has the right to decide which facts become more important than others? Zinn leaves it up to the reader to decide.

I am not saying that. Zinn is aiming to educate us, to show us facts others have ignored; another perspective. How many ways do I need to say it?

I disagree. Whomever owns or controls the media, owns the spin. It would be nice if there was no spin. But that would be like saying it would be nice if their was no opinion, no bias, no ingrained prejudice or favoritism. But the fact of the matter is that most of the worlds media is owned by six huge media conglomerates. It behooves us to discover their agenda.

(Just an aside; Zinn's book is published by Harper Collins, a subsidiary of the Murdoch News Group, which owns Fox news.)

I am merely pointing out that it is in our best interests to find out who owns the television/publication/internet news channel we rely on for our news.

My point exactly. But how many people do you think are aware of this fact on an everyday basis?

Again, I somewhat disagree. While it is seldom wise to read a review that offers only praise or condemnation and no critical analysis of the product, I don't believe that a generalisation can be made that the good reviewers are only lower rating critics.

In his profile. He has written reviews for 182 books. Thumbing through about a quarter of them, I noted titles having the common theme of war, military battles, and man's endurance were rated with four or five stars. These were in the majority of the titles reviewed.

Of the fewer books he reviewed on other topics, some were on the role of science, philosophy or other odd matters. And a few dealt with democratic or leftist political themes. These later titles were invariably ranked the lowest, seldom above two stars, with the invariable conclusion that the scholarship was poor, the focus biased, the conclusions weakly drawn.

It seemed apparent, to me at least, that he did not appreciate anything with a liberal or anti-military bias, as if war and the well planned battle strategy were the only solution to the world's social ills.

I never said such a thing. I merely believe that history shows that war is a never ending cycle and resolves nothing, short of deciding who has the bigger stick and who gets to become dungeon lord. It is not our entire past, it is merely part of our past, and needs to be put into perspective next to everything else, and not upheld as a glorious and enduring constant.

Well, for all practical purposes, Columbus did discover America. There had been Chinese on the American west coast before Columbus, not to mention Leif Eriksson and the Vikings from whom there are archaeological proof they lived in Newfoundland for a while. There are also stories about Irishmen sailing across the Atlantic and reaching America before Columbus did. However, it was not until Columbus' travels that America was discovered and entered into the consciousness of the bulk of the Europeans. It was with him that America started to be a part of the "rest of the world", so to speak.

If men do not travel to the Moon again for the next four hundred years, but the next journey there is the start of colonization of the Moon, Neil Armstrong will not be more significant to the course of Lunar history than Leif Eriksson is to the course of American history.

Still, it is obviously wrong not to mention Leif Eriksson even in the most basic history textbook on America.

__________________
President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Sure, there are changes of ideology, ideas, interpretation, and indoctrination. At the same time, history textbooks also changes due to newly found historical and archaeological evidence. For instance, many people did not believe in the stories that the Vikings had been to America, before archaeological proof of a Viking settlement was found in Newfoundland some decades ago.

__________________
President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

True, seen in the light of how the civilised world reacted to the news that there were riches to be had, Columbus' "discovery" of America took on new meaning. I think the Europeans were well aware that these other lands existed, but until then it was assumed that there was nothing to be gained by risking travel across the open sea.

However I think the hype put behind his discovery, the spin that Columbus was this great explorer, is grossly unjust without noting that he made his voyages for material gain, and that he exploited other people to obtain his objectives. IMHO, we shouldn't honor such a man with his own name day. It puts him in the light of hero, when he was no such thing.

And the Vikings, who tend to be glossed over because they failed to succeed in establishing a colony. They should also note that the Indians obviously were in the land long before the explorers, and explain their civilization a little more thoroughly.

History books tend to place undue emphasis on the white man's history of the world, how important their civilization was, how great their achievements and discoveries, and exclude anything about native americans beyond a brief mention of how they were duped because they were so naive. Our children learn from grade school these values of exploration, imperialism, exploitation, and they learn that it is rewarded. This emphasis on white civilization belittles the importance of passive and sustainable cultures, and places more value on the people who exploit and conquer.

Biarne was the first viking in America.

The Viking Icelanders were the first to touch American soil, according to other texts. They just never tried to colonize, like the Spanish and French. I think that is what confuses people.

__________________
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

- George Orwell, 1984

You shouldn't exagerate the other way either. "Facts" in history exist - figures of how many people died in a war (not accurate, but there is always a frame), articles, speeches ...

The problem is more how history is taught at school : a very simplified, national-centered if not nationalistic teaching, selecting facts and letting other out. History in primary and secondary school is more about ideology than about teaching the past.

I am more relaxed than you with the issue. I think that this is the interesting side of history : that there are many ways to view/ experience an event, that none of them is totally true, but that none of them is totally wrong either. Do you know the paintings from Picasso ? In order to represent an object in full, he shows it from all its sides at once. This is the way you should go.

The more you learn about history, the more you train your critical mind IMO.

__________________
______________________Own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.”___________________Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Why do you think I'm so opinionated? I chose what excerpts and texts to believe because they made the most logical sense. Doesn't mean that they are 100% truth. I can prove as easy as I can disprove myself though contradicting information.

__________________
Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

- George Orwell, 1984

Yes, Biarne is often credited with that. According to old tradition, the discoverer was Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red who discovered Greenland, but according to some sources Leif Eriksson went there because he had heard of Biarne's discovery.

__________________
President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

Actually I would disagree. History happened and as such it is a constant. How we interpret or choose to teach it is the part that is subjective.

__________________

The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group anywhere can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all or no one is secure... - Klaatu

I agree, even as a child when I read older stories about Christoffer Columbus, I never saw him as much of a hero.

Some people have even said Columbus was the first person to realize Earth was round, which would enable him to sail westward to get to China and India. This is not true. It had been a general truth ever since the ancient Greeks discovered it that Earth was round (though the Church liked to put it as an immovable centre of the universe). The question was how big Earth was, nobody knew, but most sea captains believed it to be bigger than Columbus did, which would have made it impossible for him to reach China or India by sailing westward since his supplies would not last. As it turned out, this majority was right, and if the West Indies and Central America had not been were it is, Columbus would have faced a certain death on the ocean, never reaching land.

I hope you know Leif Eriksson was a Viking.

In principle, I agree, though I certainly think some people these days seem to want to take the emphasis on other cultures too far. For good and bad, the European civilisation was the one that united the world. It was done through conquest and the death of many innocent natives, but many of the decendants of these natives have gotten a materially much better life and greater opportunities thanks to it.

(By the way, Tor, I like your avatar.)

__________________
President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.

History is a constant, that is true. Nevertheless, it is not only new interpretations and teachings that change the view of history, it is also new discoveries. These discoveries can consist of archaeological material, newly found old writings, newly found connections between previously known facts, etc.

__________________
President Josiah Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate. 100%! How do they do that?
Leo McGarry: Maybe they don't and they can't add.