Howard Zinn (1922-2010)
2010 January 28
Many of us are thankful tonight for the full, radical life of historian/activist Howard Zinn who passed away today from a heart attack. Check out the well-done obits from the AP and the Boston Globe. If there is anything recognizably good or hopeful in u.s. american history, Zinn pointed to it.
Thank you, St. Howard!
that’s sad. that generation of american radicals is fast depleting. Chomsky’s still kicking. are there comparable individuals on the horizon?
RIP Howard. A People’s History is one of those books that I want to make sure my kids read at a much earlier age than I did. I was in my mid-twenties before I’d ever heard of it and wish I could’ve read it in high school.
are there comparable individuals on the horizon?
Check out Shane Claiborne. He is a non-affiliated Christian who is part of the movement towards New Monasticism. While not as much of a “public intellectual” as Zinn and Chomsky, he has the light and he LIVES IT. He has written some interesting stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shane_Claiborne
His most recent publication: http://www.jesusforpresident.org/
Recent sermon at Urbana: http://vimeo.com/8450605
Jonathan Kozol and Wendell Berry are “still kicking” too but Zinn’s voice will be deeply missed.
He answered so many questions for me. In a sense, his work “saved” me from my jingoistic, fun-gelical upbringing. He taught me to read between the lines. And he introduced me to radical catholics like Dorothy Day and the brothers Berrigan.
certainly Kozol and Berry. from my elementary knowledge of US intellectual life in the early-21st C, Henry Giroux is travelling in that direction but has nowhere near the tone, coverage or acessibility of Zinn. then there’s Naomi Klein (is she from the US?). And of course, there’s the mighty Cornel West. but Zinn will certainly leave a hole, esp. for an intellectual who can produce historical treatises at his rate.
Naomi Klein is from Canada.
I like Mark Danner and Michael Parenti too.
Remy, Naomi is a powerful influence on American readers from her Canadian perch. I am, in essence, calling out the Lib Theologians still active for their reclusive collective stance. I am a low income wage health care worker who would like some solidarity, rather than intellectual ruminating…
Ah, yes, he will be missed. His writings were so mind-opening for me …
That new obit in the NYT is fairer to Howard than the AP obit they ran after his death, which quoted Schlesinger referring to him as “a polemicist, not a historian” and caged the entire thing in language that I suppose was meant to cast him as some sort of radical “revisionist” academic leftover from the 60s.
And there are a lot of comparable intellectuals of a younger generation, though I doubt they will have quite the same level of notoriety as Zinn or Chomsky. David Graeber is probably my favourite anarchist thinker at the moment. Though I’m no fan of his Jacobin political philosophy, Peter Hallward has produced brilliant work on Haiti and made it onto the BBC recently to discuss the earthquake. Marcus Rediker and Peter Linebaugh are activist labor historians. The antiglobalization movement is full of activist academics.
Zinn was a unique individual. He was able to both criticize and encourage at the same time; a man with severe insights and great likability. He garnered some criticism as a historian, but often the barbs sound more like people who merely want to dismiss him for his perspective and politics rather than for his history. People like Zinn and Chomsky had their lives shaped by the great tribulations of the 60’s and 70’s and their corresponding movements (civil rights, anti-war, etc.). We have similar tribulations, but I am not sure if we yet have comparable movements – but I think we may be on the verge. Maybe what we saw in Copenhagen is an indication of things to come. Anyway, I think if we are to see another Zinn, he/she will need to be forged in the crucible of activism and not only as an erudite critic.
H.Z. RIP