Howard Zinn Critical Essay | Critical Review by Courtney R. Sheldon

Critical Review by Courtney R. Sheldon

SOURCE: Sheldon, Courtney R. “An Urgent Plea to Historians.” Christian Science Monitor (30 July 1970): 5.

In the following review of The Politics of History, Sheldon suggests that the strength of Zinn's convictions is reminiscent of those of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.

Millions of Americans ask plaintively, even desperately, why the unnerving turmoil and strife in a land of such great promise?

The answer of Howard Zinn, professor of political science at Boston University, has the searing conviction of Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison who erupted in 1831:

On this subject (slavery) I do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her baby from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me...
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