Perhaps you’ve already heard about Howard Zinn’s death, or maybe you haven’t. Inconveniently, another author, J.D. Salinger, a legend in his own right, died at the same time, eclipsing Zinn’s passing. The media’s reflex was to focus on Salinger, whose books are required reading in many high schools, and to essentially ignore Zinn, a historian whose books most don’t encounter until college, if ever. Of course, Zinn probably expected this reaction.

Zinn will remain important, however, for bringing to light many of the less flattering aspects of America’s history, undermining national myths of meritocracy and making frequent use of a dirty five-letter word, “class.”

Zinn’s website features a wide variety of interesting obituaries and tributes for him, including one from Willie Nelson.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.