The one where I get all emo about someone who made a difference
Howard Zinn died.
Now, this may not seem like a big deal to some, but I can say with certainty that Howard Zinn's work is on the very short list of books that have changed my life. A lot of people have read A People's History of the United States and I'd be surprised if one of them walked away from it with an unchanged view of history. Howard Zinn didn't just confirm for most of us lefty-types that the people we're taught should be our heroes really shouldn't be, but he also taught us that there was a whole world of history beneath the surface that we're taught about in high school. That throughout every great historical period and event, there is a story of masses of people struggling to improve their lives while those we're told were great men did all in their power to prevent them from doing so. His work did all of that and more.
Howard Zinn is one of the main reasons that I am completing my PhD in history right now. I had always had an interest in history, but had never considered it as something I wanted to study. When I was in CÉGEP, I had flirted with the idea of taking political science or sociology in university, but I couldn't make up my mind. So, I decided to take a year off after graduating in order to figure out what I wanted to do. This was also at a time when I was getting heavily involved in different activist groups. I was reading just about everything that I could get my hands on or that more seasoned activists were telling me I should read. Zinn's A People's History of the United States was one of those books. I started reading it in the months after I got out of CÉGEP and finished it pretty quickly considering that it's 600+ page book. I had brought it with me on a trip my to New Brunswick with a friend to visit her family. One day, while we were driving through Gaspésie and I read from his book, it dawned on me that there was so much more to history than I had imagined and that uncovering more of it was something that I wanted to do. Just like that, I had decided to enter the history program at the University of Ottawa.
Like my introduction to punk music, my decision to go into history is one that led me down a path that I would not have gone down if I had chosen to study something else. In other words, it changed my life and helped make me who I am today. Not only did it give me the opportunity to learn about things I wouldn't have learned about otherwise, but it gave me the chance to live and work in France for a summer, write an MA thesis and eventually move to another city to work on getting a PhD, but history class is also where Patti and I met.
I don't think there are many things that come along in our lives that we can honestly say had such an effect that had we not come across them, our lives would not be what they are today. Howard Zinn's work is one of those things. Had I not read his book, I probably would not have decided to study history. Had his work not inspired me to look for the stories of the people who we never learn about in high school, I simply would not be where I am right now. At the risk of sounding really cheesy, Howard Zinn's work helped make me who I am today and I can only hope to have a small amount of the effect that he had.
"But with all the controls of power and punishment, enticements and concessions, diversions and decoys, operating throughout the history of the country, the Establishment has been unable to keep itself secure from revolt." [...] "To recall this is to remind people of what the Establishment would like them to forget - the enormous capacity of apparently helpless people to resist, of apparently contented people to demand change. To uncover such history is to find a powerful human impulse to assert one's humanity. It is to hold out, even in times of deep pessimism, the possibility of surprise."
- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States.
RIP.
Now, this may not seem like a big deal to some, but I can say with certainty that Howard Zinn's work is on the very short list of books that have changed my life. A lot of people have read A People's History of the United States and I'd be surprised if one of them walked away from it with an unchanged view of history. Howard Zinn didn't just confirm for most of us lefty-types that the people we're taught should be our heroes really shouldn't be, but he also taught us that there was a whole world of history beneath the surface that we're taught about in high school. That throughout every great historical period and event, there is a story of masses of people struggling to improve their lives while those we're told were great men did all in their power to prevent them from doing so. His work did all of that and more.
Howard Zinn is one of the main reasons that I am completing my PhD in history right now. I had always had an interest in history, but had never considered it as something I wanted to study. When I was in CÉGEP, I had flirted with the idea of taking political science or sociology in university, but I couldn't make up my mind. So, I decided to take a year off after graduating in order to figure out what I wanted to do. This was also at a time when I was getting heavily involved in different activist groups. I was reading just about everything that I could get my hands on or that more seasoned activists were telling me I should read. Zinn's A People's History of the United States was one of those books. I started reading it in the months after I got out of CÉGEP and finished it pretty quickly considering that it's 600+ page book. I had brought it with me on a trip my to New Brunswick with a friend to visit her family. One day, while we were driving through Gaspésie and I read from his book, it dawned on me that there was so much more to history than I had imagined and that uncovering more of it was something that I wanted to do. Just like that, I had decided to enter the history program at the University of Ottawa.
Like my introduction to punk music, my decision to go into history is one that led me down a path that I would not have gone down if I had chosen to study something else. In other words, it changed my life and helped make me who I am today. Not only did it give me the opportunity to learn about things I wouldn't have learned about otherwise, but it gave me the chance to live and work in France for a summer, write an MA thesis and eventually move to another city to work on getting a PhD, but history class is also where Patti and I met.
I don't think there are many things that come along in our lives that we can honestly say had such an effect that had we not come across them, our lives would not be what they are today. Howard Zinn's work is one of those things. Had I not read his book, I probably would not have decided to study history. Had his work not inspired me to look for the stories of the people who we never learn about in high school, I simply would not be where I am right now. At the risk of sounding really cheesy, Howard Zinn's work helped make me who I am today and I can only hope to have a small amount of the effect that he had.
"But with all the controls of power and punishment, enticements and concessions, diversions and decoys, operating throughout the history of the country, the Establishment has been unable to keep itself secure from revolt." [...] "To recall this is to remind people of what the Establishment would like them to forget - the enormous capacity of apparently helpless people to resist, of apparently contented people to demand change. To uncover such history is to find a powerful human impulse to assert one's humanity. It is to hold out, even in times of deep pessimism, the possibility of surprise."
- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States.
RIP.