...And Howard Zinn is still dead.
Oh yes, I almost forgot...
Reality is a bitch, and at times the truth does hurt. Deal with it.
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What, no "Darkness at Noon"?
"Don't turn around."
Posted by: mojo | January 28, 2010 at 11:11 PM
Yes insensitive.
Maybe crazy too!
On your recommendation, I have requested the "History of United States" thingee through my local library branch. I will get back to you when I have read it, yo.
Posted by: PALGOLAK | January 28, 2010 at 11:42 PM
After reading Lawrence Auster's "obit," where he didn't just piss on Zinn's grave, he practically took the corpse out and sent it to the gas chamber, I have a new appreciation for your "moderation", Dennis.
In looking through Zinn's biographical materials online, and having read his "magnum opus" many years ago, I don't think he was a communist, and I can't imagine he had any love for the Soviet Union, at least after World War II.
Small consolation, I know. The People's History deserves a marginal spot as an "alternative" view of American history, not the central spot in academia it has usurped.
I'll also order the Johnson book from the library on your recommendation. As for other alternative volumes, Robert Conquest's The Great Terror is one I read many years ago. When published it was derided as biased and slanted, but subsequent events and revelations showed that Conquest's story was, if anything, a mild retelling of the gruesome events.
Posted by: Nodrog | January 29, 2010 at 12:00 AM
Hell to the yeah on Paul Johnson; I'd also recommend "Modern Times" by him.
If you're talking great 20th century historians I'd have to throw in John Keegan ("The Face of Battle") and Paul Fussell ("The Great War and Modern Memory"). Highly recommended, if you've not.
Posted by: David | January 29, 2010 at 01:38 AM
'Cambodia Year Zero' - for the really bad commies.
Posted by: Simon | January 29, 2010 at 03:56 AM
Also there is Roy Medvedev's "Let History Judge".
"Modern Times"... great, very depressing, book.
Posted by: Dennis The Peasant | January 29, 2010 at 04:14 AM
IMO, Paul Johnson's best book is Intellectuals. Here he properly roasts the left-wingers who valued ideas over people. Not to be missed.
Posted by: Jon | January 29, 2010 at 04:56 AM
Jon-
I would agree. I've given copies as college graduation gifts to the kids of our lefty friends.
Posted by: Dennis The Peasant | January 29, 2010 at 09:39 AM
I've read Let History Judge, by Roy Medvedev, and it is terminally flawed by the fact that Medvedev is also a communist, just of the more "humanistic" variety. His basic position is that the Soviet Union would have done just fine if not for Big Bad Josef Stalin. I would suggest reading "The People's Tragedy" by Orlando Figes and Richard Pipes' two volume set on the Russian revolution to disabuse yourself of that notion.
Posted by: Nodrog | January 29, 2010 at 11:08 AM
I know that you're not about "monetizing" your blog, and I appreciate that there are no stupid popups or garish banners, Dennis, but you might consider Amazon links when you discuss books or music.
It wouldn't make you as rich as Charles Johnson, but it might put a six pack in the fridge once in a while.
Posted by: just passin by | January 29, 2010 at 11:51 AM
When I heard Zinn was dead my mind immediately leapt to a quote from Tale of Two Cities: "Drive him fast to his tomb."
Posted by: Vanderleun | January 29, 2010 at 07:07 PM
Oh, and by the way, Just passin, Johnson is not rich, not at all. If anything Johnson is well and truly underwater.
Posted by: Vanderleun | January 29, 2010 at 07:08 PM
sarcasm dude...didn't want to make it too plain
Posted by: just passin by | January 29, 2010 at 11:00 PM