Irreplaceable

I think Noam Chomsky got it exactly right when he said that Howard Zinn is "irreplaceable".  I enjoyed A People's History of the United States, though it wasn't formative for me, but it was a landmark book—and critical in that it offered a more honest (and therefore more radical) view of history in a style that made it accessible to people who might not normally be open to a left viewpoint.  What came through so clearly for me was Zinn's sincerity and humanism; he never seemed like he had an ideological axe to grind, but rather like someone with a deep commitment to the basic dignity and worth of each of us, and I'd say that's exactly why his work has had such broad and lasting appeal.  It was a comfort just to know he was out there, and it's hard to believe he's not anymore.

This was a pretty crappy way to start the year, and before the decade is out I'm afraid we'll be losing a few more irreplaceable people.

Comments

[James Ferency]

Where else can one find, in one book, the scope what A People's History does except in A People's History? I love that man. In the coming years, he will be missed . . . and often cited.

[Gnome Chomsky]

Yeah, I've always been a little amazed by the opposition to him -- it's not like he argued that nothing you had ever been taught was true, he just focused on the stories that never get told, to offset the idea that it's only a select club of Great Men who have made history.

I did at least enjoy seeing that Digby called him a "liberal historian", only to get immediately corrected by about ten commenters on the difference between leftists and liberals.