Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Zinn, Howard - Philip Green (review date December 1970)

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Philip Green (review date December 1970)

SOURCE: Green, Philip. Review of The Politics of History, by Howard Zinn. American Political Science Review 64, no. 4 (December 1970): 1281-83.

[In the following review, Green discusses Zinn's rejection of the possibility of achieving objectivity in historical writing.]

The purpose of Howard Zinn's excellent collection of essays on history and historiography is to draw attention by both analysis and precept to “the consequences in action of historical writing. The meaning … of a writer will be found not just in what he intends to say, or what he does literally say, but in the effect of his writing on living beings.” (p. 279) “The Politics of History,” then, is a literal title, referring not to political events in time past but to the current activities as historians (and social scientists) themselves, Zinn's own included. For in a world, as he puts it, “where children are...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Ralph Ellison (review date 8 November 1964)
   2. Allan R. Brockway (review date 25 November 1964)
   3. Martin B. Duberman (review date winter 1965)
   4. Margaret O'Brien (review date 5 February 1965)
   5. David P. Gauthier (review date November 1967)
   6. Carl Cohen (review date 2 December 1968)
   7. Simon Lazarus (review date 7 December 1968)
   8. Saville R. Davis (review date 16 January 1969)
   9. Courtney R. Sheldon (review date 30 July 1970)
   10. Ralph Stone (review date September 1970)
   11. Philip Green (review date December 1970)
   12. William L. O'Neill (review date June 1973)
   13. Peter Michelson (review date 28 July 1973)
   14. James T. Patterson (review date September 1973)
   15. Michael Kammen (review date 23 March 1980)
   16. Bruce Kuklick (review date 24 May 1980)
   17. Oscar Handlin (review date autumn 1980)
   18. Charles Glass (review date 24 October 1980)
   19. Erwin Knoll (review date February 1991)
   20. George Scialabba (review date 13 May 1991)
   21. Howard Zinn and Jack McEnany (interview date summer 1991)
   22. Michael Kazin (review date December 1991)
   23. Mark A. Graber (review date spring 1992)
   24. Paul Buhle (review date 21 November 1994)
   25. Matthew Rothschild (review date January 1995)
   26. Maurice Isserman (review date September 1995)
   27. Howard Zinn and David Barsamian (interview date July 1997)
   28. Harvey Wasserman (review date March 1998)
   29. Mariel Garza (review date July 1999)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright