On Zinn's Failure to Truth
"As for the subtitle of this book, it is not quite accurate; a "people's history" promises more than any one person can fulfill, and is the most difficult kind of history to recapture. I call it that anyway because, with all its limitations, it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance. That makes it a biased account, one that leans in a certain direction. I am not troubled by that, because the mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction-- so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements-- that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission." -- Howard Zinn (Ch.12, p.413, Par.2)
A summary of the above paragraph can be truncated to "I lied because my opposition was lying". The definition of a lie is 'a statement that deviates from the truth', and often has a great deal of truth at its base. A lie is sometimes unintentional-- and a lie is sometimes for the sake of gain, either for one's self or associated parties or political alliances, sympathies. In academia, an unintentional lie is upon discovery followed up with an contextual apology to the liar's deceived audience and a correction of the scrutinized statements. In this case, such an apology was not extended--in fact, an unapologetic confession to 'kind of, sort of lying, just so you know' was all a reader could grasp from Zinn's conclusory banter.
The purpose of this essay was to provide rebuttal to Zinn's fraudulent account/interpretation of history, specifically WWI and WWII, however after reading this statement it is of absolutely no contest, even by the author's admission, that almost the entire book is of summaril fabrication and not only an offense to the younger generations actually being taught the material in it (when this material is actually selected as the primary reading material-- this is a rare scenario being described due to just this problem), but to every historian that invested any amount of time using this book as a cited source in any project hoping for credibility and absolute _shame_ should engulf any professional who claims "The People's History" should be taken as anything close to an accurate depiction of American history. Apologies are due far and wide surrounding this book and author.
"We have learned to look to stars, leaders, experts in every field, thus surrendering our own strength, demeaning our own ability, obliterating our own selves. But from time to time, Americans reject that idea and rebel." -- Howard Zinn (Ch,12m p,414, Par.2)
The participants in these movements were, every time, minority and special interest groups and could not by definition represent the all-encompassing object of 'Americans' or 'The People'. Does Howard Zinn really, truly believe that the American insurrective movements described in the book are individual rebellions that merely abstract to collective movements? His book even said otherwise, yet in his conclusory chapter, he says this? That these movements were not 'led', and influenced by groups and people that were organizing and preying off propaganda apparati of their own creative device and fiscal momentum? Special Interest leaders stirred discontent in the masses, resulting in participation, not the other way around. I quoted this only to elaborate on my rhetorical forefront on the absurdity of the almost incoherent and hypocritical misfires of a rambling, broken mind: The mind of Howard Zinn.
"Madison...and his colleagues began the Preamble to the Constitution with the words 'We the People...,' pretending that the new government stood for everyone, and hoping that this myth, accepted as fact, would ensure 'domestic tranquility'" --Howard Zinn (Ch.12, p.414, Par.5)
Here, Howard Zinn is deliberately ('deliberately', because he is an expert and would not be foolish enough to make the mistake of) misinterpreting the hypocritical conceptions of the founding forefathers that were common-yet actually and uniquely to the forefathers- progressive for the age. 'The people' were not viewed as 'all humans in these territories', they were viewed as those participating in their current government(s)/society: white, male, property owners. This was a conception that was carried over from Europe. Note that women are allowed to vote, and even run for president now. Those same rights exist, as well as many others in an equal -if not 'more than equal'- way, for all minorities. This was the case when the book was written, as well. While Zinn may be accurately describing a conception that 'unrelieved' people had at the time, he is not accurately describing the intentions or mindsets of the founding forefathers-- and is well outside of his bounds as a historian to even gest at those kinds of possibilities. Even if the founding forefathers did believe that black men and women should have equal rights, 'the people' would be intolerable to enforcement of such a practice for many generations to come. This was not governmental-controlled oppression, this was 'waiver to the majority', to 'The People', regardless of their personal bias. Zinn is confusing American founding principles with contemporary progressivism.
"the use of elections and war to absorb and divert white rebels were not enough, in the conditions of modern industry...to prevent the great upsurge of socialism the massive labor struggles, before the First World War. Neither that war nor the prosperity of the twenties, nor the apparent destruction of the socialist movement, could prevent, in the situation of economic crisis, another radical awakening, another labor upsurge in the thirties." --Howard Zinn (Ch.12, p.416, Par.2)
Zinn's basis for this Argument is that US involvement in WWI was mostly economic and to distract the American people from their domestic 'unrest'. As lengthy an approach as this is, I feel a need to rebutt Zinn's entire depiction of World War I and World War II for the sake of as much prioritization of history as I am capable within my time allotment. My primary discord with Zinn's account of the World Wars is on the grounds that these wars cannot be understood without some background knowledge of the other countries involved and also cannot be realized without acknowledging the historical reasons for these conflicts.
Serbian nationalism is even today having a very large impact on international conflicts, but in august of 1914, a 20 year old Serbian nationalist and member of "The Black Hand" assassinated the heir to the Austrian/Hungarian throne in Sarajevo as part of a plot to form a 'Greater Serbia' to unify all Serbians that were relocated during the rule of the Ottoman empire. Ferdinand was giving a certain degree of Autonomy to the Serbs, and this upset radical nationalist groups that were fighting for that unified Serbian region. In response to this, Austria/Hungary imposed very heavy sanctions on Serbia for spawning the anti-hungarian-rule sentiment that resulted in the formation of these groups. The Serbian region had for some time been a big problem and cause of unrest in Hungarian politics and Germany formed a controversial alliance with Hungary to lay down whatever actions it felt was necessary to receive penance from Serbia. With the new German Alliance, Austria/Hungary attempted to assimilate Serbia into its empire completely and forcefully.
For historical reasons, Russia had long supported the Serbian people, and reacted in the expected way: They gave military support to Serbia, as did France.
At this point, we have Austria and Germany pitted against Russia and France.
As a result of Russian and French involvement in the conflict, it became clear that Germany needed to quickly subdue France in order to not lose horribly in the brewing scuffle between Austria and Serbia. Germany had a war-time operation/scenario for such a large war involving a 40-day takeover of France, called "Schlieffen". This procedure was Executed at that time.
The Alliances that resulted in the preceding conflicts actually date much further back in history around the turn of the 20th century, when European power balances shifted to a Cold War model. European countries weapons budgets went 'up all around the board' and alliances were being formed everywhere under the premise that eventually there would be a 2-sided battle that would be fruitful for all members of one of those sides. During the Franco-Prussian War, Germany had gained substantial french territory; an event that resulted in political unrest in France. As a result of this loss, France allied with Russia for geographical and economic reasons, as Russia bordered Germany, which would provide militant leverage, and France had superior technology in many facets that Russia would benefit from.
While this was happening, Germany began a naval-oriented arms race that prompted Britain to make alliances with France and Russia; supporting this action was the fact that a great many British colonies were in those regions, especially along borders. This was also a double-sided attempt to improve popular rest in the British controlled regions of the French and Russian borders.
At this point, Most of Europe become startled at Germany's "Kaiser" making fearful announcements to other European nations of a kind of 'Prussian rule, as promised by a supernatural fate'. While it was probably the Kaiser's intention to boost morale for Germany in doing this, its effect was uniting most of Europe against Germany in fear of strategic assimilation.
On the flipside, the situation on the Russian and French borders was beginning to weaken for Germany as Russia began to develop into a formidable superpower. The longer that Russia was growing, the harder the War would be when Germany and Russia finally started a direct war. Because of this (probably accurate) conception, Germany supported Austrian invasion and assimilation of Serbia for strategic reasons: This would expedite a war with Russia to stop the militarization that presented a threat to German imperialism. This also kept Russia busy while "Schlieffen" was executed.
This invasion of France resulted in global trench warfare. World War I had started.
As for the actions that prompted US involvement, there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the actions of Britain which may have directly influenced the USA in such a way that they felt it necessary to enter the war. At the time, Britain had the most intimidating intelligence and counter-intelligence networks the world had ever seen, and was very accurate in manipulating the intelligence of other nations while giving the appearance of transparency.
First, Britain cut off all of Germany's transatlantic communiction capabilities, effectively requiring the USA to use Britain as a proxy for intelligence on WWI and giving the British almost full control of the coverage provided to our media. All cables were cut across the North Sea, which is a stretch of waters that connect Britain to Germany, and all transatlantic cables between the US and britain were kept intact for the duration of World War I. At that time the British established a 'War News' Bureau that fed war updates to the American Press. Soon after, reports of German atrocities that later turned out to be of questionable accuracy began flooding in to American newspapers.