The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn
Admiring ... Zirin...does a lively job of portraying the historian’s deeply engaged life ... Zirin’s book evokes these battles well but falls short of being a judicious assessment of his subject. In Zirin’s eyes, Zinn was always right ... The biography also tends toward clichés and overstatements.
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The People’s Historian also replicates one of ’s flaws: It can flatten complex problems and people into apparently simple ones ... Zirin’s weakest chapter is the one on A People’s History itself. He has assigned himself the task of defending Zinn from criticisms, even relatively friendly ones ... [An] admiring biography.
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Zirin’s fast-paced biography, The People’s Historian, is an answer to the most interesting version of 'What would Howard say?' ... Zirin argues convincingly that Zinn’s life story vindicates one of his deepest convictions: that ordinary people and 'small acts' can change the world ... 'Was he wrong to have faith in the people?' Zirin relates that some of Zinn’s devotees—'those politically raised on his ideas'—have asked him this question, in addition to the one about what he might say in any given situation. Zirin takes up the second query but answers it far less satisfactorily than the first.
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