/lit/ - Literature

Do you want books with a viewpoint like Zinn's, or is disagreement OK?

Ins and outs of the Civil War.

Student in history, here.

Howard Zinn is a sham, and almost universally recognized by every professional historian as a complete hack with an unabashed agenda. He repeatedly told everyone who would listen (he always was eager for a crowd) that he was a socialist, that his own famous book was written to advance socialism, and that he wanted to introduce socialism into the nation's government.

He was completely unobjective and openly so.

I've read the book. It's shit history, the sort of thing you can get in any textbook by any mediocre writer. He has taken a limited number of incidents in American history that he perceives to be full of injustice and then just gripes about them ad nauseam. It's embarrassing. This isn't good history. It's biased and political and Zinn admitted it was so. Take the book back for a refund.

Frenchfag studying English here. I've been recommended 'A People and a Nation'.

Any book on history advances some ideology.

The history of the U.S.?
Do you live there?
If yes, don't even bother.
If no, don't even bother.
U.S. history is generally either the history of the Golden Nation if you're in the U.S. or the history of the machine that will one day consume the earth if you're not in the U.S.

>>1003956

Bullshit. Read anything by David McCullough.

>>1003955

It's just some random textbook written by no-names.

>>1003962

Hell, read anything by most every historian. Ideological bias is rather limited, and almost exclusively to the marxists who have hijacked historiography.

>>1003968
Is that a bad thing?

I thought history was a science and the purpose of a historian was to write the facts in an objective manner.

What the fuck??? How can a historian be proud of having a political agenda?

>>1003977

I just pointed it out because I frankly can't discern why anyone was recommending that book to you.

First glance tells me it's probably big on social history, the "touchy-feely" of American History.

>>1003948
>He was completely unobjective and openly so.

As if this is some kind of crime. Or even objectionable. He inverted the standard viewpoint of history teaching circa 1980. What's your point?

>>1003975
damn leftist education system

>>1003989

That it's bad history and Zinn was a compromised historian. A historian is there to present the facts, not push an agenda as Zinn admitted he was doing.

>>1003989
Generally people read history books to find out what happened in the past, not to find out what some dude thinks about what happened in the past.

>>1003988

>>1004010
all history is presented from an ideological standpoint

>>1003989

>As if this is some kind of crime. Or even objectionable. He inverted the standard viewpoint of history teaching circa 1980.

I've got some books you might like, friend.

>>1003997

I think it's acceptable since he published this book to combat the agenda that has been pushed in American Schools since who-knows-when.

>>1004010
Nevertheless, you always get what some dude thinks happened in the past.

>>1003948
this is probably that retard athens.

don't mind a retarded undergrad op. zinn is well respected

>>1004020
Not necessarily. History can be told as nothing but the facts, ignoring any ideologies that the author may have possibly tried to push. Numbers, names and geography. Boring, but history. Not how history should be taught, but history.

>>1004014

Wow, that's a lot of politically correct textbook reading, son.

If this is your only foray into American history, you're going to come out of that course thinking every American owned slaves at some point, killed Indians, and conspired to oppress every minority.

>>1004020
So, the fact that the French decapitated Louis XVI only depends of someone's viewpoint?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FromACertainPointOfView

>>1004040
That's what my professor seemed to think (she insisted on how teaching about slavery and Indians is depressing for a teacher), and she always talked about Obama in good terms.

She

>>1004017
Equating Zinn's work to Holocaust denial? Nice.
(Wasn't it more like 5.7 million anyway?)

>>1004044
>citing tvtrope in historiographical theory discussion
fuck, what are you trying to do son?

>>1003997

Zinn's stated purpose was to present an academic history from the viewpoint of people, groups, professions, institutions, who otherwise wouldn't get a look in otherwise. Meaning socialist labor, blacks, native Americans, Chinese etc.. This is clearly an agenda, but you seem to think that where history is generally not provided for (in a mainstream sense), it mustn't exist.

>>1004055

There's a lot of that from professors in U.S. colleges, too. This is generally what they infect people with at the ivy league schools. To a lesser extend the regional ones.

captcha: and nieves

>>1004055
I have never killed a person of any race.
I have never had a slave.
I have rarely but not never met the European stereotype of Americans, which from personal experience I can say is generally spot on.
I don't like being thrown in with the entire population of this backwards country all the time. But most Americans deserve the reputation they have.

>>1004035
but you'll never digest any of the facts without some notion of the historical actors and their motives, the causes and reasons for historical events and of course the POINT of studying history. all of which are ideological and political

>>1004035
how do people choose which facts are presented and which are ignored? which facts are important and which are not?

>>1004017

Oh, you called me a holocaust denier. Good thinking there.

>>1004077
You can't digest it easily, but it can be told from a viewpoint that doesn't promote any ideology.
Or it could be told from every side, giving each group involved an equal say so as to give each ideology involved equal promotion.

>>1004070
This might be unrelated, but I picked up this option, last year. I went to the first class (I was the only guy in the room); The list of documents the teacher gave us included reality shows, Brokeback Mountain and Tarantino

I never showed up again and switched to Translating Poetry.

>>1004088
that's not the point of a textbook. a textbook is there to educate kids on the pertinents events of history. what part of zinn's selection do you find problematic?

>>1004085

If you can read you will discover that nothing of the sort occurred

The same teacher also said that white supremacist groups were plotting to assassinate Obama, and that economic planification was not 'socialist', it's only what far-right weirdos say to insult the President

>>1004090

Yeah, it would be pretty difficult to encapsulate the history of a nation's sense of "manhood" into one course and base it off of movies.

>>1004111
One of the documents we studied during my first and only hour in this course was this

>>1004122
And here's another one (forgot about the rest)

>>1004101

What the fuck is "planification"? Do you mean a planned economy? I think you're teacher should have spent less time talking about Obama and actually taught you some English.

>>1004101

Economic planning is the very definition of socialism. And at least 40-50% of the USA seriously believes Obama is a socialist or is advocating socialism.

Also, she's right there are groups plotting to kill Obama, but there are groups plotting to kill every president that is elected. It's nothing new.

>>1004111

The main way a nation expresses itself is through its media.

>>1004124
My mistake, planification does not seem to exist in English

Yeah, I mean planned

>>1004128

This is what english majors actually think.

captcha: of hammered

>>1004135

Then how?

If you're looking for a left-wing historian like Zinn, Richard Hofstadter, who coined the term Social Darwinism, is much better. The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It is his best - most of his books are at available though.

Arthur Schlesinger is a must too... I recently read his journals and it was like reading all the hopes and dreams of a man being sucked out of him as it starts before the Kennedy assassination and ends around the election George W.

>>1004133
Oh, is English your second language? If so, my bad, I didn't mean to be that harsh.

In the middle of the semester, she would teach us about the Civil War

I asked her if Lincoln had the (constitutional) right to wage war on the Southern states which merely tried to secede

I insisted, but in the end she told me that question was a bad idea because we could discuss about this for hours

>>1003989

>As if this is some kind of crime. Or even objectionable. He inverted the standard viewpoint of history teaching circa 1980. What's your point?

It's objectionable because twisting history to suit your needs is despicable.

People should be able to take in the information and form their own opinions. Telling them what to believe isn't the place of a Historian, but more of a propaganda artist.

Though I suppose if you get all your news from political commentators it can be hard to tell the difference between facts and opinions.

>>1004147
>>1004147
Yikes, excuse my errors.

Most of Hofstadter's books are available at any local book store.

>>1004111
1.it's not based off of a movie. it's a supplementary and empirical case study.
2. the course is probably trying to teach you MORE, as in an increase, about the subject and not trying to "encapsulate." you are just drawing a retarded implication from the titling.


anyway, itt mad people complaining about their classes for no good reason

>>1004148
Yeah, not only do I study in France, but I'm also French.

>>1004153
have you any idea of how history was taught prior to zinn? was it "objectively fair" or whatever crap you are throwing up

>>1004152

I tend to think he didn't have the constitional authority (his predecessor, Buchanan seemed to understand this) but she is right in that the argument is an old one and would take hours to hash out.

Would most Americans regard the Civil War as a second Revolution, fulfilling the stated aims of the first (both in its national and international sense) - and in the process requisitioning the largest amount of property than in any point in history? Would they even regard the freeing of slaves in such terms? This is the stuff that "numbers, dates, individuals" can't take into account.

>>1004126

That's an extremely broad definition of socialism (all government is socialism in the same stroke). Opinion polls by percentage is also a very slippery way of judging the reality of something. The great majority of Americans don't even believe in evolution, apparently.

>>1004156
Another bad thing is that half of our mark would be based on a 3000-word 'research' paper based on one of the notions learned in class

When I switched to Translating Poetry, I missed half of the classes, did only two short exams, and got away with a 15/20 mark

>>1004040

But... we did.

And we would do it again if we could.

>>1004181
I did it 70% for trolling purposes and 30% because I was legitimately interested by this question (and I would still like to know more about it)

According to Captcha, I will know the answer the day I buy harps

>>1004193
Every single one, every single citizen of the country, without exception owned slaves at some point in their life?

>>1004197
Also, during our lesson about Old/New Immigration, she couldn't answer my question about when the Green Card was created

She told me she had to check her documents and she gave me an answer the week after

>>1004192

Is the question asking modern Americans or Americans that lived during the Civil War?

Also, you're right. Most Americans don't believe in evolution because 90% of this country masturbates to the thought of Jesus.

>>1004201

Well maybe not you, because you're an immigrant, but us real Americans did.

>>1004201

No, the elite did. And no, they would not do it if they could, because debt slavery is so much more efficient.

I'm not the person you quoted, just replying for them.

>>1004152
>trying to troll by using a constitutional argument
>unwittingly demonstrates the retardation of hurroriginalism
oh dear lord.

>>1004206
By the way, my teacher is French, almost everyone in the classroom is French or a native French speaker, but all Civilization/History/whatever the fuck you call it - teachers, have to give their lectures in English

Has anyone else experienced this? It feels awkward, and I don't see the point. I know I can listen to and take notes from a full lecture in English, so please don't test my listening comprehension skills. If we're all French, why not just do the whole thing in French?

>>1004244

It may suck for you now, but I honestly wish they did stuff like this when i was in school (American). Learning different languages is one of the best things you can do for yourself, and its hard when you get older...

>>1004217

All university lectures should be done in German, IMHO.

>>1004234
Excuse me?

>>1004234

I'm a native English speaker and I have no idea what this means.

>We hold these rights to be self-evident

Self-evident? Woah, slow down there Jefferson, that's a HUGE leap in logic.

>>1004208

Modern Americans obviously. Not everyone has to be able to describe the processes going on around them to participate in those same processes. Probably back then it was enough to say that large amounts of US territory was unjustly succeeding from the Union, and it had to be prevented.

>>1004287

Modern Americans have no opinion whatsoever on this. Most don't know anything about the Civil War.