Howard Zinn and the Book That Poisoned a Generation | 5 Minute Video

One book and one author have changed how American history is taught. America is no longer the good guy but the cause of everyone’s problems. Who is the author? What is the book? And why has it become so popular?

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Script:

The writer of the most popular and influential history book of the last quarter-century was a radical, leftist professor who despised his subject.

The writer’s name is Howard Zinn.

And his subject is America.

Zinn died in 2010, but his toxic theme lives on: America is and has always been a cesspool of racism, imperialism, and capitalist exploitation.

You may never have heard of Zinn, but I assure you a history teacher at your local high school or college has. And probably teaches his text or ideas.

The book Zinn wrote is entitled A People's History of the United States.

If you’re trying to understand why so many young people lack patriotism—or worse, regard America with contempt—you don’t have to look much further than Zinn.

Columbus was evil?

Lincoln wasn't really interested in freeing the slaves?

The Allies weren't any better than the Nazis and the Japanese in World War II?

The Vietnam War was not about stopping the spread of communism, but about promoting American imperialism? 

Zinn.

How do you take an essentially decent country and turn it into the source of much of the world’s evil?

You just have to lie, distort, and falsify.

Zinn did all three.

A life-long and passionate leftist, everything he ever said or wrote was in service of the Marxist dogma that life is a class struggle. Distilled to its essence this simply means that those who have power are bad and those who don’t are good.

Therefore the downtrodden working class, the proletariat, are a heroic, but faceless mass. The villains—the capitalist ruling class—in contrast all have names and faces. They are the heroes of the nation—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy, and others.

Zinn, as any Marxist true believer would, saw his task to tear down the latter and promote the former.

But is such a simplistic approach really history? Noted liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger didn’t think so. Zinn, Schlesinger wrote, was “a polemicist, not a historian.”

As a polemicist, a propagandist, however, Zinn had few peers.

Columbus turned out to be a perfect target. Before Zinn, Columbus was widely extolled for his foresight and bravery. Now, thanks to Zinn, he’s considered a genocidal maniac.

Zinn takes the explorer’s ship logs and twists them to say the opposite of what Columbus clearly intended. In Zinn’s dishonest rendering, Columbus had contempt for the natives and wanted to enslave them.

Read the explorer’s observations in context and in full, and their true meaning emerges. Columbus had deep respect for the Taino (Zinn calls them the Arawaks) and insisted that his men treat them well. Furthermore, he chronicled how terrified the Taino were of the neighboring tribe, the Caribs. For good reason. The Caribs not only enslaved the Taino (immediately and decisively refuting the idea that Europeans introduced slavery to the New World) but ate them. Yes, they were cannibals.

Much excellent scholarship on Columbus had already been done before Zinn turned the explorer into evil incarnate. Not surprisingly, the picture painted by respected historians like Samuel Eliot Morison was complex. Columbus was not faultless, but neither was the world he discovered a new Eden.

But if you’re preoccupied with propaganda rather than truth, what does it matter? It didn’t for Zinn. His monsters change, but never their motive: more power for the capitalist ruling elite.

Nowhere is this view more clearly expressed than in his discourse, the longest section of the book, on the Vietnam War.

In Zinn’s view, it was just this simple: mighty, imperialist America bad; the North Vietnamese, the fearless peasants, good. That the Communist North Vietnamese slaughtered and tortured tens of thousands of South Vietnamese is not allowed to upset the equation.

[girlonfoot]

Oh, this looks good... We read "A People's History" in 11th grade US History class in the mid-90s. It wasn't what sucked me into critical social justice ("diversity credits" in college had that dubious honor), but it groomed me for that conversion. Now that I'm out of the woke cult, I'm very interested to learn more about the truth behind the book! #ioncewaswokebutnowimfree

[wstavis]

I consider Howard Zinn one of the most despicable and dishonest men in the history of academia, right up there with Noam Chomsky.

[camilohernandezs]

Could you please cover what’s happening in Cuba this weekend? Next Monday the Cuban people will take the streets all over the world to end Castro dictatorship, socialism and communism in Cuba. We need all the support we can get. Thanks.

[RiflemanReveiws]

I remember zinn’s book was assigned reading in my US history course when I was completing my undergrad in 2009. This course was the sole reason why I lost so much enthusiasm to further study US history, At least in a formal university. The topic is still my favorite but I would never pay a lefty professor thousands of dollars to lecture me on something they clearly show so much disdain for.

[markaaronsite]

33 years teaching, this book is in more classrooms than any other book I've seen. We are reaping the results of this un-scholarly and hateful book with the Woke generation.

[farmerbob]

I read Zinn’s book and I lived in the area of one of the chapters. What he wrote was a complete fabrication and almost a complete opposite of the facts.

[reharl]

Zinn was indeed a low resolution relativist thinker. He famously stated "objective thought is neither possible, nor favorable", which only a moron could state unironically. He also said we should never seek to advance humanity, because setting goals and priorities requires objective summarization. Seriously. Reading his combined works is hilarious.

His works really only appeal to losers who are seeking desperately to justify their dispossession.

[sosaysthecaptain]

Yep, can confirm, was poisoned by this book. Recovery took fifteen years, but was eventually complete.

[sydneypoppy]

If the book is “The People’s History of the United States, ” it was the gateway to my indoctrination as a freshman in college. I was 18 and had no idea what was happening to me. I’m SO grateful that I was red pilled and I have never looked back!

[THATMOFODIRT]

And yet Zinn never left the country he despised so damn much.

[patrickdavidge]

PragerU Producer’s
My intellectually honest liberal American History Professors told me to return Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” back to the book store. They said it was factually incorrect and extremely biases. Keep in mind my Professors voted majority in the Democrats favor.
Thank you for this video PragerU. 🇺🇸

[lucasley]

I had never heard of this Zinn individual and where we are today makes perfect sense. Thank you for teaching me something today!

[LeoWhalen]

This lady has made a career out of bashing Zinn. I wonder if she even read his books.

The American Conservative even backs Zinn.

I can be a Patriot and still think Vietnam was a war about American credibility.

I can be a Patriot and still be disappointed in the way Colombus carried out his BRILLIANT AND BRAVE adventure to the New World.

I can be a Patriot and still be upset that my country treated Japanese Americans horribly during the early 40s and didn't help Jews trying to escape Europe.

More than one narrative can be true at the same time.

[JackdBrett]

I was at a local used book store the other day and overheard a young obviously modern leftist couple asking the worker if they had Zinns book. I cringed and wanted to recommend something else, like Paul Johnsons 'A History of the American People' but I opted not to. Didnt wanted to be called a racist white supremacist and be relentlessly questioned why I sympathize with Nazis and hate mexicans ect ect all whilst being recorded.

[DTHuey]

Howard Zinn did something that angers many people- he told the truth. There is nothing I've seen to indicate that he "hates America". To characterize America in terms so simplistic as good or bad is a mistake, as is thinking of it as a single entity to be judged. It's government has engaged in some foreign policy which has been brutal and destructive and some which has been heroic and beneficial. To pretend any different only denies it's members the opportunity to do better in the future. There seems to be a recent trend against acknowledging and teaching uncomfortable history (which may spur feelings of guilt, though it shouldn't). This is precisely what is most important to accurately teach, and the real guilt lies in NOT doing so.

[robinj.]

HISTORY is a complex subject. That's why so many "students" absolutely hate that subject!
But, once your able to visualize the complex series of interconnected links, the subject comes ALIVE!
I live in a house surrounded by (literally) THOUSANDS of books. And a good portion of those are on History.
Also remember:
"Those who refuse to learn the Lessons of History are doomed to repeat them!"
Zinn did untold damage to the American psyche. But, it can be repaired.

[avax]

He’s been spot on just because the truth paints a picture you don’t like doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.

[dahveezy]

We have Columbus's journals where he describes how he tortured and slaughtered natives (he fed them to dogs in some instances). How can she defend that?

[donterranove]

I wrote a comment, then erased, and said, "Nah -- who cares -- I don't comment on these YouTube threads!".

But here I am again. I read this book at UCSB in the early 1990s. I loved getting a different perspective than the pro-American traditional view of US History. Could I recognize that Zinn was slanted? Of course. But I also read pro-west Profs like Terence T. Finn and his ilk. The idea that one book can influence an entire generation is a shortcut to thinking. I live in the middle. I am a moderate. The right always blames the left for being myopic -- and I love Prager's Site -- but in my humble opinion, this video commentary is off-base. The right is creating a fake boogieman. Lastly -- Grabar doesn't write her own book with her own ideas, but instead creates a longwinded critique.

[tacticoolnurse]

I've read (most) of Zinn's book back when I was a teen. A leftist relative insisted I read it. I classified it as the propaganda that it was within the first two chapters. Anybody who takes as simplistic a view of any history as Zinn did does not deserve to be taken seriously. His book really is as bad as this lady makes it out to be.