A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present

In the course of one of my frequent visits to London, back in the ‘70s, I purchased a coarsely bound 300 pages blue brochure in a sordid bookstore ... (show more)

In the course of one of my frequent visits to London, back in the ‘70s, I purchased a coarsely bound 300 pages blue brochure in a sordid bookstore near Shepherd Bush whose name, both of the book and of the store, appealed to my leftist leanings.
It was called (the book) “Histoire économique des grands pays capitalistes” and it was published in Beijing by the Edition du Peuple (1975). It was dirt cheap; certainly because of the sombre printing, of the unbecoming location where it was for sale, but more probably in view of the meagre chances that it had of finding, in such appropriate blue-collar surrounding, an interested and francophone reader.
I remember the episode because, while to my astonishment I learned from those sheets all sort of facts that are not generally found in more canonical, westernised literature, I also found myself perturbed by the lack of objectivity of the undisclosed authors, by their blatant one-sidedness and by their skilful selection of biased events.
This is not history I concluded. I had no doctrine to dispute the facts, but I had enough good sense to detect the tendentious political slant. A slant in my direction I must admit, but still an intolerable slant.
Zinn’s book is made of the same stuff. The only difference, and it is an important one, is that the author states his purpose clearly, and right from the start. He even confirms it with a final and explanatory afterword, lest we forget. The shelves are full, he says, of history books depicting the Washingtons and the Lincolns that everyone has learned to admire. Little can be found instead relating the intrigues and the unbearable sufferance sustained on the front scene by the underprivileged, uneducated, and often hunger driven masses. The score of the forgotten multitudes bearing the brunt of every historical upheaval is simply untold. Thus his book (first printed in 1980); and, for lesser noble reasons, my Beijing manual published in October (would you believe it) 1975.
Whether the assumed ignorance of today’s average book reading American is factually true I am in no position to tell; I can only trust Zinn’s academic experience. I have in fact met more roughnecks than scholars in my professional life; but that was my chosen lot and I am fine with it. Thus, redress the above mentioned intolerable tort is exactly what Zinn sets out to do with his narrative. Page after page he proceeds to dismantle every single idol that popular gullibility has built over 5 centuries of American history. From Colombo to G.W. Bush (OK, not much of an idol), all American icons and presidents were rogues bent on building a privileged society on the blood sweat and tears of their fellow citizens and, preferably, of the blacks, females, Indians and immigrants of the working classes.
Well, who am I to dispute such assertion? And in view of the fact that I agree with him? Yet, I felt reading his book the same sort of malaise that afflicted me in London back in the ‘70s. And this because I inferred in Zinn’s presentation an equal lack of balance as I had discovered years ago in the Beijing publication.
All what Lincoln did could not be evil. He was leading a civil war, and wars are wars. They need officers, enemies and soldiers. The ones get the medals; the others are plundered and die. How else does one fight a war? As for the rationale of waging one, with hindsight there always are better reasons to stay put. But here is my point. Politics is not history, and history cannot be politics. The one looks at facts with a magnifying glass, the other from the distance, with a telescope. And, obviously, they do not see the same things. The one is argumentative and grows day by day in the appropriate forums. It is biased because it has to be. It is generated by biased parties who were chosen because they were partial, and it is specious because it serves special people and special interests. History should be made of a different texture, and should never be written when the iron is hot. I do not contend the right of a historian to his point of view; his job however is not to divulge it raw, but to build it into a theory the proof, or the disproof, of which is not the same thing than the fostering of an opinion.
Somehow, presenting only the injustices suffered by the many, the class struggle and the race discrimination in a factory or on a battle field does not tell more than the obvious. Politics soil one’s hands Sartre wrote in the ‘50s. Wars are horrible, innocents are killed and profiteers make a bundle. What else is new? History however is not dirty. It should not only list the inhumane political decisions, but specifically investigate their consequences and show how, good or bad as they were, they all permitted to move society from one equilibrium to another; the second generally being much better than the first. With his unbalanced act Zinn attempted instead to balance the unbalanced. To counter the dominating misinformation with the facts that it ignored. While the purpose was certainly useful and commendable the same, as a scientific analysis, cannot be said for the result.
Two bads do not make one good. A biased book may make the bestseller list, because the uninformed are eager to hear the sound of another bell. At the end of their reading however they will not be the better for it. They will have more anecdotes to recount, less heroes to cherish and several more pieces of conversation to chat over with their friends.
None of these however will fit a general picture. None will be part of an interpretative system.
History is comprehensive by definition and a biased book, in spite of its title, is never a history book, whichever way it leans.
lvm
Apr 2009 (show less)