Howard Zinn, the populist historian, died today in Santa Monica. He was 87. From The Boston Globe:
For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. Dr. Zinn's best-known book, "A People's History of the United States" (1980), had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers - many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out - but rather the farmers of Shays' Rebellion and the union organizers of the 1930s.
This is from his autobiography:
I wanted students to leave my classes not just better informed, but more prepared to relinquish the safety of silence, more prepared to speak up, to act against injustice wherever they saw it. This, of course, was a recipe for trouble.
Here's Howard Zinn's "What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me About the American Empire." It's a compelling mix of biography and history.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftpqALvXjO0He'll be missed.
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