Howard Zinn A Peoples History Ch 1 and 2 Summary
Howard Zinn
A Peoples History of the United States
Chapter 1: Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress Can historians avoid emphasis on some facts and not others?
Historians are selective, they simplify and they emphasize what they believe is important and gloss over other things they view as less important.
“This distortion is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual.” p.8
This emphasis assumes that everyone has the same goals and viewpoints.
Committing of atrocious crimes still happens today and they are often buried in a mass of other facts. This is referred to as moral proportion (judging what is OK and what is not and emphasizing what you feel is right). This is more harmful when it comes form a historian because they are assumed to be objective and what they say is then more easily accepted by the audience. Do the means (acts of cruelty) justify the ends (to progress from savagery to civilization)? How can you judge this if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are not mentioned or are mentioned very briefly. Do the privileged minority share the same opinion
A Peoples History of the United States
Chapter 1: Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress Can historians avoid emphasis on some facts and not others?
Historians are selective, they simplify and they emphasize what they believe is important and gloss over other things they view as less important.
“This distortion is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial or national or sexual.” p.8
This emphasis assumes that everyone has the same goals and viewpoints.
Committing of atrocious crimes still happens today and they are often buried in a mass of other facts. This is referred to as moral proportion (judging what is OK and what is not and emphasizing what you feel is right). This is more harmful when it comes form a historian because they are assumed to be objective and what they say is then more easily accepted by the audience. Do the means (acts of cruelty) justify the ends (to progress from savagery to civilization)? How can you judge this if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are not mentioned or are mentioned very briefly. Do the privileged minority share the same opinion