Along with J. D. Salinger, Howard Zinn died yesterday.
Along with the rest of America, I read A People's History of the United States. Unlike those of my political persuasion, I was unimpressed. What was worse, I felt like some kind of budding conservative because I found Zinn's book to be, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty awful. His protestations of ideological purity fell on deaf ears in my case.
I thought I was alone until I stumbled across this article from Dissent. Written by Michael Kazin six years ago, I just now finished reading it, and have to say the whole time I found myself nodding and saying, "Yup, that's pretty much the way I felt."
So, thank you, Michael Kazin. At the very least, there is one other person out here in the world underwhelmed by an allegedly great left-wing intellectual.
