[In the following review of Postwar America: 1945-1971, O'Neill contends that there is little that is new in Zinn's revisionist history of the postwar years.]

This book demonstrates how important timeliness is to a polemic. Few readers of The Progressive are likely to disagree with political scientist Howard Zinn's description of American foreign policy, or his denunciations of racism, sexism, militarism, and assorted other blights. But neither are they likely to find much that is new to them. The revisionist histories such as those by Gabriel Kolko and Lloyd C. Gardner have made us familiar with the often sordid motives underlying American diplomacy. Thanks to Gar Alperovitz and many others we know that even if the decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan was right (which Zinn disputes), it was arrived at wrongly. And what literate person can now escape knowing that the poor, the black, and the disadvantaged all have reason to feel mistreated and neglected?

Five or six years ago Zinn's remarks might have been news to some. But at this late date to announce breathlessly that in a capitalist country capitalists have unfair advantages is to make even the sympathetic reader feel embarrassed for him. Zinn has left no moderately radical cliche unmolested, which is exasperating even when you agree with the point of view. Surely the day is long past when it is appropriate to write about American failings as if one were Upton Sinclair discovering the Chicago Stockyards.

A further drawback is the disingenuous air of his conclusions. Zinn is eager to find signs of hope in our present circumstances, as who is not, but many that he invokes have faded away. The student movement is gone. The Black Panthers have sunk back into obscurity, perhaps even moderation. Of all the movements he writes about only women's liberation still seems to be growing.

Zinn's last paragraph begins: “In postwar America, it was beginning to be recognized by a small but growing part of the population that the special qualities of control possessed by the modern liberal system demanded a long revolutionary process of struggle and example.” It is not quite clear what Zinn means by this, but he seems to suggest that vanguard elements are on the move again, in commune and caucus, working for the good society. This notion, which was valid a few years ago, is clearly out of date.

I do not mean to say that optimism is wrong; indeed, serious reformers cannot get along without it. But when hope becomes wishful thinking no one benefits. That such a committed and intelligent activist as Howard Zinn has given way to it is perhaps a measure of the difficulties we face. All the same, denying reality does not make it less real. The effect instead is to trivialize obstacles, even when they are indicted passionately as Zinn does. If we are to understand, still less confront, our problems we must take them more seriously than Zinn is able to do.