The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy

Rating:
Summary: A provocative package
Review: Worth the money at any price, this is a rousing compilation of articles from one of America's leading historians of the left, whose earlier and epochal *A People's History of the United States* has served as something of a bible to those revisionist historians and activists more interested in unvarnished fact than patriotic myth. This revealing volume demonstrates that same class conscious perspective, this time ranging over topics both historical and contemporary, including insights into Plato, Machiavelli, the morality of war, the civil rights crusade, and the historically neglected Ludlow massacre. The result is an omnivorous selection to say the least, but one that includes plenty of ideational grist to disagree with even for those on the political left, who may find his pacifist leanings not just impracticable but insensitive to neo-colonial oppression. Be that as it may, few chroniclers of America's past so thoroughly demonstrate the bankruptcy of the official record as does Zinn, who unlike the abjectly house-broken Arthur Schlesinger Jr. has thankfully never found a place in the corridors of Repubocrat power which whatever else can be said has proven so materially rewarding for the opportunistic. There is solace however in the realization that were Zinn's historical honesty to replace the usual highschool pablum, even MTV teenagers might discover an identity that preceded them, and realize that there are no rebels without causes, but only victories as yet unwon. Zinn's work is a signpost along the way.