Just got this book from my uncle yesterday. From what I've heard about it, it seems a little... bleh.
>According to the author, American history is to a large extent the exploitation of the majority by an elite minority.
MUH OPPRESSION! Now, I'm no historian myself but I've had a lecture on historiography and I've got a bad feeling about this. What do you all think?
>>468837
This is the newest /his/ meme isn't it.
Chalk another one up for Australian shitposting.
don't read it then you ignorant pleb lol if you're gonna get spooked by a book
>>468841
Considering that there were threads trashing Zinn on day one of this board, it's not new.
Zinn seems profound until you start taking actual upperdivision history classes and you learn that history is not a black and white narrative of heroes and villains, oppressors and victims, but a lot more contingent and nuanced than what Zinn writes. Also, he has awful citation and relies heavily on secondary sources, its basically a left-wing synthesis of American history.
Reading an American History textbook by Eric Foner is more insightful and useful than reading Zinn.
It's ok man. I learned a lot about the US but I'll have to work to drown out the subtext
>>468837
>muh oppression!
Prefacing something with "muh" doesn't refute it.
There's a reason why no serious scholars, even left-leaning ones, cite Zinn.
>>468911
>Zinn seems profound until you start taking actual upperdivision history classes and you learn that history is not a black and white narrative of heroes and villains
Did not read the fucking book.
>>468986
>literally employing a no true scotsman fallacy
>>469001
I did, actually, it's not a very complex book to figure out and that is a pretty accurate summary of the contents. Zinn is much less profound than the scholars he relies on to make up the contents of his narrative (like Foner and Beard).
>>468837
I've heard that the book was purposely written to seem very leftist because zinn felt there was no focus on the history of the poor in America
>>469014
>I did, actually
Not by the looks of that characterization.
>>469019
Alright Zinn, thats enough.
>>469019
The book is pretty simplistic and he really only focuses on a few key themes in American history, namely: oppression of the working class by the landed elites and corporate robber barons from the start of colonization through the 20th century (he makes Bacon's Rebellion out to be something it wasn't, among other problems), the oppression of blacks from slavery through the Civil Rights movement, the struggle to unionize industries and opposition by the evil robber barons, the antiwar movements, particularly Vietnam, etc. His narrative is literally black and white, since he gives very little attention to any groups besides European immigrants and African Americans (Asians, Hispanics, and even Native Americans are rarely mentioned) and he has very little on politics and culture. It's a very simplistic narrative with very little original research and no graphs, figures, empirical data of any kind, and extremely sparse citations (which was the most frustrating thing to me when reading it). He is also very uncritical of the groups and movements he sympathizes with, like the IWW (Dubofsky has a much more nuanced and objective analysis of their activities).
The flaws become more apparent as you become more familiar with the scholarship on American history, so I can understand why you think so highly of it.
>>468837
It's basically a retrospective of American history through a Marxist lens; what you come away with is more-or-less a direct function of your attitude towards Marxist thought.
>>469083
Not really, I enjoy E.P Thompson but Zinn seems amateurish by comparison.
>>468837
A fair amount of people on this site seem to like it:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2767.A_People_s_History_of_the_United_States
>4.1/5
>100,000 ratings
>>469173
>people must like it so it must be good
ebin
>>469193
Why are they all mistaken?
Have you read their reviews?
>>469233
>online user book reviews
they literally mean jack shit
>>469287
Not even one?
>>468837
> According to the author, American history is to a large extent the exploitation of the majority by an elite minority.
To be fair this is history in a nutshell. I don't know why OP got triggered, maybe he's afraid the book will have an automatic privilege-checker or something or he's afraid that he's privileges. Who knows.
>>469323
yes, not even a single one.
>>469361
I congratulate you on saving time then.
>>469381
no problemo
Lots of people here are forgetting that Howard Zinn's books are meant to complement standard history textbooks, not provide a definitive, exact history of America.
>>468837
I remember reading it and seeing it that cites Eduardo Galeano on something related to 19th century US-Mexican relations. That's the exact moment I realized pic related.
>uses almost no primary sources
>uses bad and explicitly partisan secondary sources
>doesn't even try to hide its agenda because 'you learned the other side already in school rite guys :DD'
>tries to attack complex subjects such economic and social history without a shred of qualification or expertise
It's not a history book, it's a glorified pamphlet.
>>469063
>graphs, figures, empirical data of any kind
These aren't commonly found in credible monographs in historiography mate.
>>469907
It's required at least when it comes to social and 'popular' history that is not written from a purely cultural and subjective point of view (i.e. EP Thompson).
>>469021
i thought he was dead
>>468837
Baby's first socialist history.
>>469936
>It's required at least when it comes to social and 'popular' history that is not written from a purely cultural
No. It isn't. The number of books with charts, figures or "data" in the sense you mean it are minimal.
>subjective point of view
Wait until 4th year, historiography will blow your fucken mind.
>>469953
wat da fug is 'historiography' anyway
kept seeing fifel go on about that shit before he dropped his name
all could gather about it is merely focusing on recorded data insofar as numbers and statistics and drawing conclusions from there i.e. population numbers, growth, crafts/industrial production, quality of yearly harvests n shit etc. etc.
i dunno how far you can get with that
>>469968
>wat da fug is 'historiography' anyway
Historiography is the method of writing history, the art of writing history and the product of disciplinary historical writing.
In particular it focuses on legitimate readings and interpretations.
>>469972
see here i always thought that was always a thing, you know part of historian-ing and all that
sort of like journalism and ethics
or if you laugh at that, medicine and ethics
or if you laugh at that, you know what i fucking mean anyway
>>469979
The problem is that a lot of people here, a lot of people here indeed, think that "history" is "anything written about the past."
And the only way to differentiate that literature from "historical" literature is to point at historiography.
>open book to page 1
>"CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS WAS A RACIST, RAPE-FILLED, CIS-GENDERED WHITE SUPREMIST"
Really?
>>469992
HarperPerennial RevEd 1995, p1: Arawak men and women, naked, tawny and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat.
Racism accusations: 0
Rape accusations: 0
The term "cis": 0
The term "white": 0
Accusations of white supremacism: 0
Leave here and go back to >>>/pol/forever
wow i remember people saying this board was actually worth a damn, but it seems pretty shit
>>469953
>No. It isn't. The number of books with charts, figures or "data" in the sense you mean it are minimal.
I'm reading Paul Kennedy's Rise and Fall of Great Nations and just finished Arrighi's Long Twentieth Century. Two books from widely different methodologies (although somewhat similar topics, granted) and both' exposition of charts and other forms of quantitative datum is immense.
>>470018
Page 1 is probably preface desu
>>468837
I think when you assess Howard Zinn's APHOTUS you need to separate three things from each other: Howard Zinn's politics, your politics, and the content of the book itself. You might like Zinn's politics, but that doesn't mean anything about how good or bad his book is.
What Zinn set out to do was offer a 'people's' (ie, left wing) response to a version of American history that was nationalist, triumphalist, and focused upon the deeds and narratives of the powerful. He was upfront about writing a book biased in favor of the not-powerful.
The trouble is how Zinn does this. It's difficult to elaborate within the post character limit, but, in essence, Zinn is extremely presentist, somewhat sloppy with his research, and a deeply conspiratorial thinker.
If you want a left-wing critique, see Michael Kazin's 'Howard Zinn's history lessons' in 'Dissent' magazine (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/howard-zinns-history-lessons)
An academic critique comes from Oscar Handlin, 'Arawaks', in 'The American Scholar' (https://d3aencwbm6zmht.cloudfront.net/asset/97521/A_Handlin_1980.pdf). Handlin, by the way, is a giant of social history ('history from below') and pretty much single handedly displaced the 'frontier thesis' with the idea that the best explanation of America is 'a nation of immigrants'.
It's not a bad book, per se, but it is a bad history book. From Kazin's review:
>[T]o make sense of a nation’s entire history, an author has to explain the weight and meaning of worldviews that are not his own and that, as an engaged citizen, he does not favor. Zinn has no taste for such disagreeable tasks.
>The fact that his text barely mentions either conservatism or Christianity is telling. The former is nothing but an excuse to grind the poor (“conservatism” itself doesn’t even appear in the index), while religion gets a brief mention during Anne Hutchinson’s rebellion against the Puritan fathers and then vanishes from the next 370 years of history.
>>470066
There is no preface, and no page i.
Neither the fly nor title page contain these assertions about Columbus.
>>470060
Thomas, Miners in the 1970s contains between 1-5 tables, all sourced from union research officers. It is a 400 page organisational history.
>>470091
>between 1-5
That's a pretty big difference?
It's 1-5 more than Zinn btw, which is about twice as long in pages.
>>468911
It's not a literal history textbook, it's just framing eras of American history through a marxist view. It's like saying 'The Influence of Sea Power upon History' attempts to show that the entirety of human history is boats.
>>470076
From Handlin's review:
>Focusing upon the dimly known Arawaks of the past, whose shadowy shapes can take any form, the book cannot do justice to the great variety of actual people who inhabited the United States. The blacks and whites, immigrants and natives, laborers and farmers, merchants and manufacturers cannot be known when treated as lay figures to be manipulated according to the author's fantasies.
>[...]
>By his account, only one motive moved [the elite]: greed - from Columbus rapacious in the quest for gold to Carnegie lusting for profit. Hence the blank incomprehensibility of those who acted contrary to their interests. Why did John Marshall come to the aid of the Cherokees? Why did the Grimkés turn against slavery? Why was Andrew Carnegie an active anti-imperialist? To answer such questions would have called for an examination of intellectual and social forces beyond Zinn's ken. Indeed, since the dominant tradition of liberal reform in the United States was staunchly pro-American, he must interpret it as only a device by which the elite protected its own interests.
>>470102
All I'm suggesting is that using tables as a way of determining monographic quality in history is a bad sign, and your idea of empirical data is poor. Your distinguishment of "subjective" history from other histories is also a bad idea.
>>470103
Bad analogy desu.
>>470103
Zinn isn't Marxist Here is a good review in an actual Marxist magazine:
>Thus, a narrative about demonic elites becomes an apology for political failure. By Zinn’s account, the modern left made no errors of judgment, rhetoric, or strategy. He never mentions the Communist Party’s lockstep praise of Stalin or the New Left’s fantasy of guerilla warfare. Radical activists simply failed to muster enough clear-eyed troops to pierce through the enemy’s mighty, sophisticated defenses.
>[...]
>No work of history can substitute for a social movement. Yet intelligent, sober studies can make sense of how changing structures of power and ideas provide openings for challenges from below, while also shifting the basis on which a reigning order claims legitimacy for itself. These qualities mark the work of such influential (and widely read) historians on the left as Eric Hobsbawm, E.P. Thompson, Gerda Lerner, C.L.R. James, and the erstwhile populist C. Vann Woodward. Reading their work makes one wiser about the obstacles to change as well as encouraged about the capacity of ordinary men and women to achieve a degree of independence and happiness, even within unjust societies. In contrast, Howard Zinn is an evangelist of little imagination for whom history is one long chain of stark moral dualities. His fatalistic vision can only keep the left just where it is: on the margins of American political life.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/howard-zinns-history-lessons
>>469063
this desu
>>469063
This.
>>468837
Zinn is absolutely trash tier. He's blatantly biased, and unashamed of it. He says retarded things, like 'FDR was a conservative' and 'American entry into WW1 was a capitalist plot I distract the working class from domestic issues.' That being said, his work on women and minorities throughout US history is pretty good, and the chapter on Vietnam is also good. But the rest of it is so fucking bad, that those good parts are drowned in the sea of paranoid socialist delusions.
>>469939
His ghost inhabits the souls of edgy teenagers so that he can shitpost in defense of his shitty work. Nobody with even a cursory knowledge of US history can read his work and not lol at how stupidly wrong he is about most things.
>>470105
You forgot the part where Handlin loses his cool and just BTFOs Zinn:
>Hence the deranged quality of this fairy tale, in which the incidents are made to fit the legend, no matter how intractable the evidence of American history. It may be unfair to expose to critical scrutiny a work patched together from secondary sources, many used uncritically (Jennings, Williams), others ravaged for material torn out of context (Young, Pike). Any careful reader will perceive that Zinn is a stranger to evidence bearing upon the people about whom he purports to write. But only critics who know the sources will recognize the complex array of devices that pervert his pages. ... On the other hand, the book conveniently omits whatever does not fit its overriding thesis. ... It would be a mistake, however, to regard Zinn as merely Anti-American. Brendan Behan once observed that whoever hated America hated mankind, and hatred of mankind is the dominant tone of Zinn's book. ... He lavishes indiscriminate condemnation upon all the works of man — that is, upon civilization, a word he usually encloses in quotation marks.
>>469005
Just discovered yourlogicalfallacyis.com, kiddo?
>American history is to a large extent the exploitation of the majority by an elite minority.
How is this not true? Its still true today: Americans have no holidays, no free healthcare, no free education, a social welfare system that keeps poor people down. The entire system is based on juicing people are hard as possible in a culture of pure greed and exploitation as it always has been since the beginning.
>countless indian massacres for their land
>a colony for half its history
>slavery and plantations
>modern day mexican slavery
Its just one aspect of American histoiry and a way of looking at it, but before Americans get all defensive they should compare it to other countries history, that is assuming they know anything about other countries, which is usually not the case thanks to their education system which is just one long patriotic blowjob to their own self-mythologised image.
>>470600
>Americans have no holidays, no free healthcare, no free education, a social welfare system that keeps poor people down.
None of this is true, btw.
Also liberals are the biggest proponents of "modern day mexican slavery" by claiming that we need illegal immigrants to work shit jobs for shit pay so we can have cheap produce. They're the ones justifying illegal immigration, not conservatives.
>>470600
>having no free stuff is exploitation
lel
>>470631
>being bankrupt because you needed to go to the hospital despite paying a fortune in taxes your whole life is perfectly fine
conservacucks
>>468837
Well, first Americans are still living in Third World - standards, go ask the Indians how they feel about the book.
>>470567
It's not just that he's bias. Bias is fine, and actually good from a writer. You should have a clear idea of your thesis, and set out to defend it.
It's that Zinn's thesis is so flat, unimaginative, and sterile, it needs to distort and dismiss history to sustain itself. It's not just that history didn't happen that way, it's that history COULDN'T have happened that way.
People and peoples are much more diverse and divisive then the uninteresting, transhistoric mannichean struggle that Zinn invisions.
>socialist delusions.
Implying marxism is not the only scientific historiographical paradigm. You have all been cucked by the lies of the 1%
>>470052
Ur mum is pretty shit
>>470712
This guy gets it.
>>470078
>Literally autistic
>>470686
Step away from the keyboard, Michael Moore.
>>469939
that's what they want you to think, goy
>>470600
>Americans are all uneducated
It varies from area to area. In my home state of Massachusetts, for example, we would be 13th in the world in science education if we were our own country, and every high school student receives a college-introductory-course level of education in both US and World history, with the option to take such a class in European history specifically as well. Can you really say that your countrie's secondary school education is better than that?
>>471111
Yes
>>471142
Then what country do you live in Anon?
>>468958
no but it certainly makes a point
>>471178
Well obviously OP disagrees with Zinn on that point, but instead of attempting to show why he's wrong, it just looks like an appeal to common sense.
It's a book everyone should read, but they should be able to draw their own conclusions. Zinn makes some very important points, but he's clearly biased.
>>471028
funnily enough micheal moore has like several vacation homes.
he's a rich white dude who got rich off of talking shit about rich white dudes
>>469972
I think you're mischaracterizing historiography m8. It isn't identical to products of historical discipline, it's a debate within the discipline and the record of that debate.
>>469005
fallacy man, pls go
...
and stay go
>>469063
>he really only focuses on a few key themes in American history
Maybe, maybe, that's because it's not a comprehensive history of the United States but focuses on important but ignored aspects of the history? I understand why that ruffles you but you don't have to mischaracterize the book "having black and white narratives of heroes and villains" just because he touches on the not-so-nice side of US history and economics. Crying about someone talking about oppression of Blacks from slavery through the Civil Rights movement, union struggles, antiwar movements, etc. when, even to this day, Americans still try to defend Confederate monuments and say shit like "the civil war was not about slavery" or the fact that people just don't even know what mine towns or labor wars are shows that the book was needed when it was published and is still needed. Maybe when you become less of an autist and actually start talking human beings that aren't fellow undergrads (assuming you talk to them) you'll figure that out.
>>470576
>You forgot the part where Handlin loses his cool and just BTFOs Zinn
He definitely loses his cool, but all he does in embarrass himself. Going full AMRRICA is never, ever a sign of mental stability.
>>471900
>Americans still try to defend Confederate monuments
Sorry we don' support the destruction of history that is not politically convenient like you non-American degenerate cucks do. ALL history matters, even the stuff that offends your sensibilities.
Zinn has every right to publish his spin on historical events, but it provides a very skewed and narrow perspective on US history.
I would argue he is not wrong, the glaring difference in America's history is that you could start out oppressed and become the oppressor through your hard work. Its the ability for americans to generate wealth and essentially say fuck you to the elites that is a major charactetistic of America. From what I remember many of the big names like Carnegie and what not were just successful business owners who exploited what was available. It really pissed the middle class elite when these guys got filthy stinking rich
>>472010
>Sorry we don' support the destruction of history that is not politically convenient like you non-American degenerate cucks do.
>Talking about the things that I don't like means we ONLY talk about the things I don't like, I'm being oppressed!
Get over yourself.
>but it provides a very skewed and narrow perspective on US history.
You're not even trying to pay attention. Enjoy your ideology.
>>472101
Thanks, you too.
>>470577
He may very well have, but that doesn't excuse your fallacious rhetoric.
>>472308
Hi pot.
>>472308
Okay Zinn.
>>472327
No need to be upset because someone insulted your favourite lefty hack.
>>470616
>Also liberals are the biggest proponents of "modern day mexican slavery"
Are liberals suddenly not "Americans."? The post you're critiquing is from at least a populist stand-point, and assuming (fairly) that they're non US, we can assume they're at least labourite or social-democratic.
The post isn't an attack on "conservatives" you fucking black and white thinker, it is on the US elite.
>>470631
I agree, the poster should go read Capital until they understand what the relationship of exploitation is.
>>470712
>People and peoples are much more diverse and divisive then the uninteresting, transhistoric mannichean struggle that Zinn invisions.
My copy is 675 pages of 9pt roman. You sound like a bright chap, how would you help fix the text within the page limit, or is the page limit unreasonable for a text aimed at ordinary workers?
One phase of the class struggle IS manichean. And it is reasonable, entirely reasonable, to fill a book full of "hot" phase activities.
>>470734
>Implying marxism is not the only scientific historiographical paradigm.
Uh… well, at least half of the Marxist historians take an "anti-scientific" line because they're socialist humanists. And "science" in Marxism doesn't mean "science" in Popper's definition.
Also you forgot Cliometrics. Everyone forgets Cliometrics. For good reason.
>>471178
>>471395
Generally the point made by anyone using "muh" is that "this poster is a faggot."
>>471526
>t's a book everyone should read, but they should be able to draw their own conclusions. Zinn makes some very important points, but he's clearly biased.
The most useful part of the text is that it is a clear and usually foreign bias on a topic that the reader will have some personal knowledge of. It is a good text to teach people about reading secondary sources as if they're always hostile sources, rather than always trustworthy sources.
>>471829
Nah m8. "Historiography" and "history" are both used for the products of discipline
>>472344
fifel please put your name back on so we can all filter you
>>472344
Your so predictable.
>>472065
>the glaring difference in America's history is that you could start out oppressed and become the oppressor through your hard work
Last time I looked this up, entrance into the bourgeoisie from the proletariat was lower than in other industrial societies. YMMV, I don't give a fuck about movement within working class strata.
>middle class elite
Oh, you've got an incoherent instinctive theory of class. Never mind, you're a fucking idiot.
>>472317
I spell it "civilisation." Zinn's theoretical perspective was too right wing. Bukharinite even.
>>472330
I quite like Handlin's criticism prior to those lines on the works of man. [Which for the educated reader necessarily imply Handlin believes in the works of God.] Shame Handlin had to spoil his shitbeating of Zinn by going meta-historical/political.
>>472363
Yeah, nah, "Your" a cunt.
>>472354
I'll do that for a bit. Enjoying your "theoryless" pre-quals.
>>471881
>lowering the discourse of /his/ with full lucid intention
Is there anything more cancerous for the board?
>>468837
What's the difference between an 18th century Virginia farmer, an English Norfolk farmer and a French farmer in Normandy?
>>472434
Given the date, the high probability that none of them existed and they were either manorial rent/tithe holders or dirt scrabbling gentry.
>>470709
implying Indians can read lol
>>472010
>non-American degenerate cucks
(You)
>>472513
>I was actually expecting an unbiased […] discussion of history
Bias is an inescapable element of historical writing, both in primary and in secondary sources. Have you taken any historical courses at all?
>>472553
let me rephrase. acceptable, reasonable levels of bias, not cringe worthy Marxist drivel that's as bad in its own way as /pol/ le jews memes
>>472513
>invoke conspiracy theorists out of nowhere
>people who disagree with me are cucks
And use this to
>express dissapointment at the tier of discussion
>>472564
This might be upsetting to you given that you speak in uncalled for catch phrases, but almost all historians use methods deeply influenced by Marxist writings. Very few historians are Marxists or revolutionaries, but almost all historians have been influenced by the major advances made by people like the CPGB Historians Group (Thompson, Hill, Hobsbawm), or CLR James, or Engels even. In particular in the mid-20th century, the historiographical advances around social history and history from below were driven by Marxist historians using Marxist conceptions of class in history, dispersed and universal agency, the centrality of class conflict due to the centrality of social reproduction, etc.
>>472513
No it's just one Marxist /lit/ redditor that thinks because this board is new he can make into the new lefty version of /pol/. The mods should ban faggots like this. Tired of redditors and /pol/tards shitting all over here and trying to influence this board.
>>472601
>this
*these
Howard Zinn and Jared Diamond should be considered troll threads and given auto b&s.
I really wish the U.S. worked the way Zinn describes, because if that was the case, faggots like him would be lined up and shot instead of giving powerful influence over the education system.
>>472650
>because if that was the case, faggots like him would be lined up and shot
If you're horny for this, look up the history of the mining industry in the US.
There is "bias" and there is outright lying in order to make your case because you see your work as nothing more than revolutionary praxis. Marxists don't know the difference, which is why they are better ignored.
>>472620
He isn't Marxist enough for Marxists, that's true, but for the vast majority of people who don't subscribe to your bullshit, he is Marxist enough.
I have been told by the insane radical SJW leftists that I'm not a liberal despite my liberal views on LGBTQ/female rights, the death penalty, economics, immigration, etc. Fuck off tard, he is a Marxist.
>>472654
This didn't even happen during the mine labor wars of the early twentieth century. The closest thing is the Ludlow Massacre, and even then it wasn't a systematic, deliberate massacre of miners and their families by lining them up and shooting them. Even the Bisbee deportation of 1917 was relatively bloodless. The Rock Springs massacre in Wyoming was mostly racially motivated mob violence (and consisted of coal miners vs. coal miners), not systematic violence by the state or any other entity.
The mining company towns and conditions for workers and their families, along with the repression of unionization efforts, were bad enough without making up bullshit to embellish your narrative. You don't know as much about American labor history as you like to think you do.
>>472654
The one that has been crippled by regulations after being thoroughly delegitimized and demonized by education system?
Yeah, that just proves that contrary to popular belief, people like Howard Zinn are the most powerful individuals in the United States, not mining magnates.
>>472658
>Marxists don't know the difference
Thompson, Poverty of Theory
Anderson, Debates in English Marxism
The Italian Autonomists.
Out of field: Lukacs on "Great" realism (ie: bourgeois realism) as superior to "Socialist" realism.
Plenty of Marxists hold discipline above praxis in their day job, just like plenty of fitters and turners do.
>but for the vast majority of people who don't subscribe to your bullshit, he is Marxist enough.
He believes in oppression rather than exploitation, doesn't view capitalism as developing the roots of socialism, and doesn't have a solid class theory.
>>472688
>and even then it wasn't a systematic, deliberate massacre of miners and their families by lining them up and shooting them
I didn't realise your fantasy was so specific. I'm sorry. You'll have to satisfy yourself with the Chilean situation then.
>>472693
>The one that has been crippled by regulations after being thoroughly delegitimized and demonized by education system?
I didn't realise that the Gilded Age instituted a systematic and crippling set of mine regulations…
>>472654
Also, Matewan and Harlan County USA are fairly popular films, it's not like the mine labor conflicts are some sort of hidden history that no Americans know about.
EVERYONE has heard the song Sixteen Tons dozens of times.
>>472708
It's not my fantasy, fucktard. Way to concede defeat and admit you embellish your narrative and don't know what the fuck you are talking about, though.
>>472708
>implying that pretending that you hold discipline above praxis isn't itself part of praxis
>>472723
That's not my post and I wasn't responding to him, I was responding to your asinine and inaccurate response.
But yes, both you and Zinn are guilty of fabricating and exaggerating atrocities to push a narrative.
>>472724
Why in the fuck would I be interested in a social democratic "war of position?"
Where in the fuck is the Italian Social Democratic Party large enough to produce a meaningful war of position.
How in the fuck do you conspiritards mistake a piss weak bourgeois left for a mass proletarian organisation?
>>472733
"People got shot in the US mining industry"
Yeah, it's a fabrication.
>>472736
Who is denying that happened? I'm certainly not you fucking FUCK OFF IM DONE YOU WIN BYE CONGRATS IM OFFICIALLY MAD
too reliant on secondary sources Tbh
>>472757
You seem to be accusing me of fabricating specific individuals being killed in the US mining industry in the early 20th century for their politics. If this is not the "fabrication" you are accusing me of to "push a narrative" then learn to clearly express yourself.
We know that labour radicals and IWW organisers were assassinated in this industry.
Go drink a steaming shit.
>>472708
>He believes in oppression rather than exploitation
What the fuck are you talking about? Marxists believe that oppression comes through exploitation, and Zinn believed that shit to the letter.
I'm not even going to bother to read the rest of your drivel. You hide behind vocabulary in the hopes that your opposition is too stupid to counter your simplistic arguments.
>>468837
It's propaganda. This is coming from someone extremely left-wing - as a history book, it's awful, as Zinn outright pulls things out of his ass, and, as another anon mentioned, the sourcing is awful. He's got a smug, pompous writing style (which is a matter of aesthetics but it still pisses me off) that compounds the aggravation of him completely reframing and simplifying issues. Another anon mentioned his bullshit of Bacon's Rebellion, but he also claims the Civil War wasn't about slavery, though obviously in a different way than Lost Causers.
Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of the issue - and the big clash with my personal politics - is just how thoroughly and virulently bourgeoisie the whole thing is. Howard Zinn thought this book would usher in a "quiet revolution" in the universities - again moving leftism from the hands of the workers to the halls of academia, something that's sounded the death knell for any serious leftism of any strain in America. On top of this, he reeks of cowardice - he constantly whitewashes the many violent or dirty things that revolutionaries and popular movements engaged in. He refuses to admit that, a lot of the time, hands have to get dirty to scrub clean the filth. Don't minimize, say, Ho Chi Mihn's brutalities against landed classes - accept that class warfare is warfare, and warfare is not a clean or pretty thing.
tl;dr Howard Zinn is the patron saint of insufferable college kids and cemented the sublimation of the people's outrage into a tool of yuppies and the bourgeoisie to absolve themselves of their guilt
Jesus Christ I hate this spineless limp-dicked academic nigger
>>472788
>88
Marxists don't believe in oppression. It is new left liberal shit.
>>472658
>There is "bias" and there is outright lying in order to make your case because you see your work as nothing more than revolutionary praxis.
>revolutionary praxis
It's not 1915, it's 2015. Noone functions like this.
>>472788
He doesn't make arguments, he drops names. He literally refuses to make arguments supporting his position in favor of claiming that his theories are supported by what he defines as the historical discipline.
Is this faggot going to ruin everything thread about American history?
>>472821
He already has.
>>472821
He's Australian, do the math.
>>472821
yes. yes this faggot is because people refuse to ignore his pseudo intellectual "myfirstpolisciclass" bullshit. /his/ is becoming the lefty's /pol/
>>472826
They don't ignore it, he just doesn't shut the fuck up and let other people put narratives forward
>>472828
This.
Every fucking thread he has to post a gigantic wall of text which can be simplified to "dude just read Marx lmao".
>>472815
>It's not 1915, it's 2015. Noone functions like this.
Go read Federici, Caliban and the Witch and get back to us.
>>472817
>He doesn't make arguments, he drops names.
>>27939
>please reference credible source material
I'm not going to recapitulate Thompson versus Althusser for you.
>>472828
>>472833
Other people don't have coherent positions to put regarding US history, and restrict their contribution to large scale issues where their incoherence is only more obvious.
Start a thread on the 2nd great revival for fucksake.
>>472371
Hello, Tankie
>>472826
>ignore his pseudo intellectual "myfirstpolisciclass" bullshit.
>mfw my first time doing SI for World Civilizations from 16th century+ had one of these little faggots that disrupted the classroom
My professor is too nice for her own good.
I'm not going to let it happen again though. I got the okay from my professor to silence any of these fucktards next semester.
>>472848
>You
>>472848
Why do you treat a Zambian holodrama forum like it's a place where Althusser's name matters?
>>472864
kek, nice image. Replace Zizek with Thompson and it fits perfectly.
>>472848
>Other people don't have coherent positions to put regarding US history
? Your singular contribution to our historiography of America is a longue duré narrative that doesn't touch on anything to do with culture or government. In that thread about the American war of independence you told everyone else they were wrong and didn't do much else beyond talk about a revolution from above as if you were a genius for being aware that that theory existed.
>>472848
>Other people don't have coherent positions to put regarding US history, and restrict their contribution to large scale issues where their incoherence is only more obvious.
>being that fucking full of yourself
And this why people think lowly of humanity majors.
>>472885
>humanity
*humanities
Can't be bothered to give a fuck since I'm at the gym.
>>472848
>Other people don't have coherent positions to put regarding US history
Says the Zinn apologist
>>472848
>Go read Federici, Caliban and the Witch and get back to us.
If you had any interest in a genuine discussion rather than just trying to win the thread, you would summarise what I'm supposed to be looking for in them, instead of just throwing enough reading material on my plate that if I actually complied with your polite recommendation, I definitely wouldn't be able to post a reply to your post before the thread died.
>>472860
;)
>>472861
Just mention Wallerstein. You have an obligation to develop them within their capacities.
>>472864
Don't accuse me of reading Žižek.
>>472874
>>27939
>a high level of discourse is expected
>>472883
>is a longue duré narrative that doesn't touch on anything to do with culture or government
That's because people have been posting specious Zinn and revolution threads ad nauseam.
>and didn't do much else beyond talk about a revolution from above
You still have them old literacy problems.
>>472891
If you can't be fucked at the gym, then how will you be fucked when discoursing with prostitutes. Up your game, my man.
>>472892
My apology has consistently been for his use as a teaching tool.
>tfw you realize that /snakenoise/ is the most political board on 4chan because it is hotly contested between /lit/ and /pol/
>>472861
We're talking about you, you stupid fucking tanky.
>>471900
>Maybe, maybe, that's because it's not a comprehensive history of the United States but focuses on important but ignored aspects of the history?
Well then maybe, maybe he shouldn't title it 'a peoples history of the united states' and he should of instead titled it 'not a comprehensive history of the United States but focuses on important but ignored aspects of the history'
but much more likely he is just a sloppy historian with huge confirmation bias that had looked through data until he could cherry pick some that fit his narrative rather than letting the data guide his narrative.
>>472910
Don't forget /leftypol/ and Reddit. There's probably some cripplechan here, too.
>>472933
Because you've got access to google, and because I have no obligation to you if you're not aware of the major relevant historiographical debates.
If you're not capable of a historical discourse, I'm not obliged to teach you here.
>>472927
>data
>data
Yeah, with language like that you're really so informed on historical methodology that you're allowed to have an opinion.
>>472921
Secure trips are for losers.
>>472898
>Wallerstein
No. It's an entry level history course. Also, my professor despises non historian with no real background in history. He is a sociologist disguising himself as a historian. He is no better than Zinn, Diamond, and Green.
>>472933
>butthurt about getting called out on your shit level of discourse
>let it out by accusing other people of a low level of discourse >in the same thread<
>this board has a permanent shitposter
Jesus. The last permanent shitposter I remember is Porky from /a/. That was like 4 years ago.
>>472942
>No. It's an entry level history course.
urgh. You poor bastard. The tip for first years with too much theory is to give them primary sources.
>>472948
I've got an idea, let's at least cite the authors of narrative monographs and theory that underlie and buttress our points, instead of demanding a recapitulation of humanities theory from the day when the University of Paris began teaching Theology!?!oneslash
>>472957
>instead of demanding a recapitulation of humanities theory from the day when the University of Paris began teaching Theology!?!oneslash
Let's not pretend "humanities theory" is an actual unified category and let's have discussions about these concepts that don't purely consist of naming people who talked about them
>>468837
>>468837
Lysander Spooner
No treason: the Constitution of no authority. (1867)
This is a must read for all Americans. Basically Lysander is coming from the simple concept. That the framers and authors of the Constitution had no authority to obligate anyone. If I make a compact and only my friends and family sign it. Does it apply to you? Nope. Everyone who signed as witnesses to the constitution had no authority to make that document apply to anyone else. That is why an oath is required. He nailed it. Right from the beginning he knew in 200 years we would be in this current situation. A fascist dictatorship. It's like this is your grandfather plants apple trees all over the property and leaves it for you in this will and testament, does that make you obligated to eat apples at any time? No. We are free to be anarchists, anarchy doesn't mean chaos and violence it means a voluntary society where consent can be withdrawn.
>>472957
I do appreciate the references you cited, but a little more specificity would go a long way.
>>472954
you shouldn't be surprised, this board is the frankenstein monster of /lit/, /pol/, and /int/.
>>472939
>Yeah, with language like that you're really so informed on historical methodology that you're allowed to have an opinion.
this is how I know you are a sophist.
don't mention the claims or the arguments presented.
>>472966
I'm kind of waiting until someone has an understanding of the debates in Marxist historiography larger than "go back to plebbit" when I mention the humanists' attacks on scientific schematicism.
Which is why people should read Thompson versus Althusser, chiefly in Thompson's "Poverty of Theory"*1 but also in Anderson's reply on Althusser's behalf "Arguments in English Marxism"*2
>>472971
In future I will attempt to give a one line summary of works I cite which includes why they should be read in the context.
*1 Thompson largely argues against dogmatic and schematic marxism, with particular attention to "structuralist" marxism which see's history as a philosophical conception ala Marwick's two types of history. Thompson's primary attack is that in Marxist work, categories of social relations are derived from actual social reality, which is best apprehended, for example, through historical texts and their analysis. ie: that our theoretical categories don't exist in a vacuum but rather are developed against specific historical phenomenon.
*2 This is largely Anderson backpedalling and trying to defend tankieism.
>>472982
>don't mention the claims or the arguments presented.
In a discipline, such as history, demonstrating that someone has committed methodological errors against the discipline invalidates all subsequent claims. Like scientific misconduct.
Your claims, and arguments, are instantly dismissible based on your fucking ignorance. Suggesting that "data" exist shows a shocking ignorance of the actual process of historical reading. Here you might enjoy Hayden White's appalling works on reading. I'd suggest reading his article from Social Text where he goes through the problem of hermeneutically reading.
>>472939
>>data
>>data
>>472993
This is 4chan, not an academic conference
>>472993
>Suggesting that "data" exist shows a shocking ignorance of the actual process of historical reading.
Please come back after you get a cursory understanding of semiotics.
>>473028
You are literally a cunt, and by literally I mean figuratively and by figuratively I mean you have no capacity to read the slippage of meanings in texts.
>>473072
>he thinks there are spoilers in history
don't tell me how the seige of constantinople ends
>>473108
>seige
i before e except after c except when otherwise.
>>473108
[spoiler] which one? [/spoiler]
>>472344
>My copy is 675 pages of 9pt roman. You sound like a bright chap, how would you help fix the text within the page limit
Really? You don't see how you can fit a decent historical text into 675 pages of 9pt Roman?
If it's really that hard, cut out all the transhistoric, simplistic whinging. That basically brings it down to selected quotes.
>One phase of the class struggle IS manichean.
There's no phase of class struggle in Zinn though. His central thesis is that 99% of the population is an unchanging commonality, and they are opposed by the 1% that is an unchanging commonality. There are no phases, or changes or developments.
It's just 400 years of every human on earth being manipulated by a small group of bullies into doing things they never want to do, because they are huge idiots.
>>473132
Yes yes, but still, how are you going to use 675 pages of 9pt. to do a useful history from below. Have a think about it, it is a useful exercise.
>>473108
Caesar dies, the Third Reich loses, George Washington is elected president.
>>473144
I try to do all my history from Below, so it's not much of an exercise for me, especially since American history is easy babby mode for that.
>>473168
Well, for example, do you conduct a national or a transnational history?
>>473191
Before asking what kind of history he would write, why not ask him what exactly he would focus on? Don't you think it's a good idea to have an idea about what he's writing about before going into full-on autist theory mode?
>>473216
Well, you never specified a topic. Am I rewriting Zinn's terrible book, or am I writing my one 675 page 9pt font book on any topic I want?
>>473226
I apologise. I assume that we're taking significant feature's of Zinn's work and using the 675 pages for better purpose.
Personally I'd want to write a marxist survey work of transnational US history focused on "from below" narratives that doesn't exclude bourgeois progressives but focuses on collective subject agencies as opposed to victim narratives. Specifically designed as a partial intervention into the narrativising of US history.
If you gave me a second book I suppose I'd do the counterpoint, but I'd be more interested in doing the first volume first.
And because this is an ideal world it wouldn't have to be sold as a college textbook.
>>473246
What nations would you focus on? Why use nations as a unit in the first place?
This is John green tier history m8
>>473261
Transnationality is the "hip new thing" replacing cultural history. It basically means doing a "comparative history," but sometimes different. They use it instead of "international" because some things happen here, some things happen there, somethings happen between here and there.
Why do it? Because even with the US as the primary context: Canada, Mexico, Caribbean, UK. A whole bunch of contexts that aren't constrained by the State or Nation.
>Why use nations as a unit in the first place?
Because an institutional history of the Knights of Labor wouldn't be remaking Zinn, only better. Because the discipline is stuck. Because for a certain period the nation-state reasonably resembled the important flows of the value form (capital/labour/commodity).
>>473304
This is an ideal world where this 'won't have to be sold as a college textbook' and you're worried about the constraints of the discipline?
>>473313
Yeah. And people accuse me of putting praxis over discipline.
>>473246
I would certainly do it as transnational history.The central lie of conventional American history, that Zinn repeats, is that it begins in England, by way of Genoa and Spain.
American history starts in America, and Angola, and the Netherlands, and West Africa, as well.
After that, once "these United States" takes off as a thing, it's pretty stupid to keep it to the confines of it's borders. Borders never have served as the limits of empire, and where they effect real people.
I'd probably pay particular interaction to the impact of the Haitian revolution, and the ambiguous relationship of Irish Republicans to the American Republic, because those are my bugaboos.
Transnationality would be extremely important in the post 1945-era though, as the American Empire goes global. A bottom up narrative of the American Polity during the cold war has to include where the decisions of the American government are law.
Again, due to personal preference and bugaboos, I'd probably draw special attention to the Republic of Korea, and to a lesser extent Japan.
>>473324
I find it odd that you go into such depth about what 'transnational' means when it wasn't something I asked about. Ignore the place the discipline is at right now, please, as long as you're postulating a complete impossibility.
>>472344
Shitposter.
>>473329
>when it wasn't something I asked about.
I was responding to the second question.
What nations? Netherlands for Capital flow obviously. The sugar islands, France and England for comparative mobilities in the pre-revolutionary period (treating England's "revolution" as being externalised to the colonies largely).
Mexico, Canada, perhaps Brazil for the 19th century.
>>473338
>(treating England's "revolution" as being externalised to the colonies largely)
Care to explain what you mean by this? What kind of unit is 'England?' Expand on what this revolution entailed. Why are you focusing on a revolution and not on other elements of the history of America? I know Zinn does it, but why is it your fascination?
>>473347
England, as in the southern bit of the Isles of Britain whose gentry and nobility dominated parliament, and the social relationships constrained and delimited by this state and economic concentration.
>Expand on what this revolution entailed.
In this time horizon: corn laws, enclosure, master servant, manhood sufferage and the charter.
>Why are you focusing on a revolution and not on other elements of the history of America?
Because the change in mode of production from a late feudal gentry centred one to capitalism unleashed was of world importance and conditioned the expression of most other phenomena inside the bits of America contextualised by the/se United States. Because I'm a Marxist and privilege the conception of modes of production as analytically useful. Because the long revolution then contextualises the success of the bourgeoisie in fulfilling, ameliorating and repressing working class demands in ways that are pretty unique world wide.
>>473347
The other thing is of course that I've picked a thematic to fit the cunt in 700 pages.
>>473379
I just don't think this is at all like what Zinn does. It makes sense to discuss other nations but I wouldn't at all call this a 'response' or update on Zinn's book. It makes sense to
>Because I'm a Marxist
But even then then wouldn't it make more sense to just talk about the history of the modern era? I really find the focus on 'revolution' to be a limiting factor here. Overall, there just seem to be a lot of things that are worth mentioning that weren't 'revolutionary' occurrences, even given the fact that post-Columbian history in the Western hemisphere is a total break from pre-Columbian history.
You seem hell-bent on filling 700 pages with arguments based on world systems theory and the kind of thing it would be useful to have economic data for, but you don't want to use data. How do you plan to go about making arguments that don't have solid numbers attached to them? Or do you just not like seeing high death counts alongside pictures of collectivized farming?
>>472801
Why do some left wing thinkers want to move the party from the working class to the college?
>>473409
Last major field review I read on genocide studies indicated a movement away from death tolls as being irrelevant. Then again they're interested in preventing genocides at a policy level, more than "the past as it essentially was."
>and the kind of thing it would be useful to have economic data for, but you don't want to use data.
Economist's "data" for periods prior to 1850 are highly untrustworthy. I think MM Postan attempted to produce a long run wage/price series for Southern England. It failed. Measuring worth has some of the laughable data to allow idiots to do "C" "P" I inflations…
The changing volume of flows between the continents is of great interest, but treating these sources as "data" is methodologically obscene. They're still texts, in context.
And of course I'd use those fucking texts.
>>473430
>Why do some left wing thinkers want to move the party from the working class to the college?
Because the orthotrots and post-progressive's red diaper children mistook the party for the class and the intelligentsia for the party and wanted to be the heros of their own liberal liberation narrative. Also because union organising is hard and soul destroying, but tankies did it because it was the only way to actually move with the class forwards.
>>473442
>Economist's "data"
I said 'economic data.' There's a significant difference between data or even relevant information about economies and data collected by people designated as economists. Would you use documents to try to tell an accurate narrative of how, when, and why objects got from one landmass to another, for instance?
>>473453
>Would you use documents to try to tell an accurate narrative of how, when, and why objects got from one landmass to another, for instance?
Emphasis on 'accurate.' You admit that academia is a new breeding ground for the left.
>>473430
Basically as a reaction to the failure of revolutionary praxis.
Since liberation seems impossible in terms of actually changing things, people like Zinn seek liberation in simply KNOWING things.It doesn't matter if we can't overthrow congress, simply knowing congress is a bunch of chocolate thieves is liberation enough.
And therefor, liberation can only come through the university.
>>473442
But in order to usher in their liberation narrative, these left wing thinkers would have to get their hands dirty. From my perspective, it looks like the thinkers want the working class to do the dirty work while they change the culture.
>>473453
>Would you use documents to try to tell an accurate narrative of how, when, and why objects got from one landmass to another, for instance?
Yes. In the first instance I'd look for a well reviewed or cited monograph or paper providing a long run series in %GDPcap year standardised shillings or pounds which explained the method of collation.
Then eventually if unsatisfied I'd look for lading and sale documents in port of entry / deposit.
Probably the biggest thing I'd look for would be capital realised as sold slaves in the sugar islands versus the 13 colonies.
>>473466
Well, they don't want the working class to do anything at all. Like millennial baptists they cry for the rapture but secretly pray "Stay thy hand, my lord, I have a paper to present on Monday."
>>473442
>Then again they're interested in preventing genocides at a policy level, more than "the past as it essentially was."
Do you think death tolls are irrelevant?
>>470576
>And in that regard we can learn something from the Arawaks, although Zinn is too obtuse to do so. What discussion ensued among those Indians who greeted Columbus or Cortez we shall never know. Perhaps they hoped by friendly gestures to propitiate the strangers and persuade them to leave. Perhaps, already aware of their own helplessness, they thought to stave off attack by appeasement. Perhaps internal dissension, or lack of organization, or will weakened by ease prevented them from following another course. Lacking evidence, we cannot know. But the outcome we do know, and from it we can learn. From Montezuma to Tecumseh, people who lacked the political means to defend themselves were helpless to resist the invaders animated by a vision of what they wanted and driven by the will to seize it
Savages BTFO
>>473501
>Do you think death tolls are irrelevant?
Yeah. I side with Foucault against Chomsky on proletarian power. But historiographically I think that ANY preventable or caused death is of interest in unpacking the actual politics of the era. The toll doesn't matter, the presence of death does. And again: for unpacking the issues. Moral judgements are for >>>/theotherplace/
>>473510
>I side with Foucault against Chomsky on proletarian power
I haven't watched that debate very closely, so bear with me while I try to figure out what you mean. You think that truth, as a product of power relations, is that killing in the name of Communism is justified?
The toll doesn't matter, the presence of death does
You criticize others for caring about preventing genocide and fudging numbers, but you don't care about methodological precision in getting an accurate idea of how many people died as a consequence of the implementation of policies that were intended to bring about a change in the means of production?
What is your goal? Not just as a historian but as a political being. What is your aim when writing this book? I'm genuinely curious.
>>473517
>I haven't watched that debate very closely, so bear with me while I try to figure out what you mean. You think that truth, as a product of power relations, is that killing in the name of Communism is justified?
Wrong way around.
Proletarian praxis is self-justifying, and the only reason to take powerful action is to increase the power of the proletariat. The problem comes when you start looking at what increases the power of the proletariat. Murdering political opponents generally doesn't increase the power of the proletariat.
>but you don't care about methodological precision in getting an accurate idea of how many people died as a consequence of the implementation of policies that were intended to bring about a change in the means of production?
I care about methodological precision. I just don't think that scale of numbers is of theoretical significance.
>What is your goal? Not just as a historian but as a political being. What is your aim when writing this book? I'm genuinely curious.
If writing books changed the world, mate… pretty much exactly the same goal as anyone else when they go to work, do as little as possible except when I think a job is "good" and get paid.
Solo writing projects aren't praxic. I'm not even sure if writing can be praxic.
>>473536
But what is your aim? What is your political affiliation? I said 'political,' not 'praxic.' I assume there's some connection between your theoretical positions and your deeply held beliefs about the way the world and your economy should work?
>>473546
There's a connection between my politics, which are lib com, and my methodology. The problem is that ideology can't produce the kind of social action I'm interested in. You can't "think your way" out of capital. Doing history is making widgets.
>>473561
You're a libertarian communist?
>>473566
Yes.
Some contexts:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/it/tronti.htm
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch13.htm at "The labour process. – Fixed capital. Means of labour. Machine. – Fixed capital."
https://libcom.org/library/cognitive-capital-contested-nick-dyer-witheford
>>473593
>libertarian statist
ayy lmao
>>473631
>le snek m8
You've never been exposed to a discourse from outside of your country or pathetically suburban sub-culture, have you?
>>473593
Explain to us plebs how it is possible to have anything like a system like communism without statist coercion.
>>473680
meh cant be arsed
>>473685
No worries mate.
>>473650
I've lived in three European countries, Russia, and several places in the US, urban and rural.
Sorry to disappoint you, friend.
>>473695
Pay attention to everyone's use of "libertarian" in terms of politics except for a few retarded Austrian free-silver small business wankers in the United States, perhaps, before posting sneks.
>>473693
/pol/ is a bad place to talk about that anyway, it'll just get flooded with NatSocs chanting about their Dear Leader.
>>473709
It is the only on-topic place to talk about it, but okay, feel free to make a thread on /b/ or /trash/ or (haven't checked the rules recently) /r9k/
>>473706
It's just banter, m80. Who "owns" the word libertarian is the subject of tons of retarded jokes, I'm sure you're aware.
>>473727
Ha ha, you were only pretending to be retarded while actually retarded. Well done. Very meta. Lit er ally figurative.
>>473736
Thanks, I try senpai.
>>469727
this t b h
>>473712
Wow, you're horrible desu
When asked to defend your position your two arguments are 'consult the discipline, I don't want to make an argument right now' or 'go to /pol/, /b/, or /r9k/
Faggot
>>475476
and you're much better?
