What do Historians think of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States?

by mrlaverne

I’m interested in the book and I know it’s popular amount non-historians, but I would like to know if professional’s think it’s a credible source.

majungo

While there is always more to be said about history, you can find a large amount of discussion on this subject here, here, and here.

These discussions also link a number of articles written by well-known historians here, here, and here.

All due credit to the redditors who contributed to these discussions; there were too many to tag individually.

2x2darkgreytile

I recommend reading the critique in chapter 3 of Sam Wineburg's Why Learn History and then the responses from the Zinn folks at:

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/what-sam-wineburg-gets-wrong-about-teaching-aphus

https://www.howardzinn.org/history-distorted-sam-wineburgs-critique/

Personally, and despite being politically aligned with Zinn, and responses notwithstanding, I find the particularities of Wineburg's critiques to be useful. He argues that Zinn gets some stuff wrong, including on the Rosenburg case, but also that the authoritative voice isn't that useful to society any more. Rather, we should be learning to apply evidence to claims critically.

In my life and career, Zinn played an important role, but by the time I read his work I already knew how to take a book that was largely a synthesis of secondary sources with a confirmation bias. I think it had also been useful as a way of writing back against power. But it has real limits.