Howard Zinn, radical historian and essayist, dies at age 87

The great US historian Howard Zinn died this week, at age 87.

I remember reading a piece of his on historiography when I was at Monash University in the late 1970s. This was before post-structuralist historiography was in vogue, or even heard of, and it stood out for its passion and intelligence. Zinn argued that history was like a terrain, with many ways to map the same event or moment. And which method of mapping we use depends on what we want to do, and where we want to go.

Here's one of my favourite later quotes from him:

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.  It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.  What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.  If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.  If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.  And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future.  The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." 


-- from You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train:  A  personal  history of our times (p. 208)


Thanks Howard.
Namaste.