In response to a question from Chris. I met Zinn only a few times, once when he graciously accepted my invitation to speak at UMass. I do not think he was in the pantheon of great American historians, but his People's History performed an invaluable service: It challenged the standard narrative of the American story and offered an alternative. [I tried to do something like that in my little book Autobiography of an Ex-White Man, but in my case my knowledge was entirely derivative from scholars whose research made it possible.]
Recalling Zinn made me think of another fine old book, Labor and Monopoly Capital, by Harry Braverman.
In the old days, it was the historians of Europe who stood head and shoulders above the rest. No more!
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I was introduced to Zinn's work in a history grad course on the New Deal. A book he edited, New Deal Thought (1966), was part of a series by various authors to provide primary source material. The selection in Zinn's volume was fascinating, including Charles Beard, Upton Sinclair John Dewey, Reinhold Niebuhr, Wm Douglas, Lewis Mumford, Henry Wallace, John Steinbeck, Fiorello LaGuardia, W.E.B. Du Bois, Felix Frankfurter, and Keynes. I used it often when I was teaching and think it is an excellent anthology. In the Intro, Zinn writes that when the New Deal was over
"...the fundamental problem remained - and still remains unresolved: how to bring the blessings of immense natural wealth and staggering productive potential to every person in the land. Also unresolved was the political corollary of that problem: how to organize ordinary people to convey to nation leadership something more subtle than the wail of crisis....how to communicate the day to day pains felt in ..in garbage strewn slums, crowded schools ...inadequate hospital wards, Negro ghetto's....the environment of millions of Americans clawing for subsistence in the richest country in the world."
Fifty years later those words still ring true, and Zinn deserves considerable credit. Both Braverman and Zinn are still on my bookshelf, and still worth reading, in my estimation, regardless of how somebody may rank them.
There was a nice brief write-up on Zinn here, by historian Erik Loomis (as part of a series of blog posts he does about visiting graves.)
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/07/erik-visits-an-american-grave-part-503
As I note in the comments, one thing that made me favorably disposed towards Zinn was that the vile John Silber hated him. He certainly had the right enemies.
People here might also like Loomis's recent book, _A History of America in Ten Strikes_. https://thenewpress.com/books/history-of-america-ten-strikes I have not read it. But, it seems like something that might appeal to some readers of this blog (And maybe to Bob - I don't know for sure) so I pass it on.
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