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Headline seems a bit off, but perhaps only because I know quite a few practicing historians whose reaction to his work was "oh, so some guy just made a fortune
by ubernostrum 17y ago
Headline seems a bit off, but perhaps only because I know quite a few practicing historians whose reaction to his work was "oh, so some guy just made a fortune packaging up all the stuff we've been writing about for years?"
- rgrieselhuber 17y agoMaking it accessible is key.
- noilly 17y agoe.g. Malcolm Gladwell
- ubernostrum 17y agoTrue, but it doesn't mean that he "challenged the status quo", unless by that you mean he wrote the same stuff as everybody else but in an easier-to-read format. The credit Zinn gets for being some sort of maverick attacking a standard view of history is... well, he wasn't. History's complex and often not very nice, as most historians will be happy to tell you, and American history is no exception.
- rgrieselhuber 17y agoFrom a purely historical context, you're right of course. I think the "challenged the status quo" part comes from the way he combined the popularization of a history that had previously under-represented in the mainstream consciousness with his activism in a variety of forums.
- patio11 17y agoProving once again that even academic Marxists can't neglect their marketing.