The
Leverage of the Truth of a Historian:
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn
(Author:
Aneu Fuji Lestarie)
Introduction
This paper offers a critical insight on Howard
Zinn’s article entitled ‘Speaking Truth to Power with Books’. In particular, he can changes people
perspective about books powerful from his article and he has different
perspective of historical with the other in his best known book ‘A People’s
History of The United State’ about Christopher Columbus whom discoverer the
America Continent. After summarising
Zinn main points, I shall be claiming that Zinn did not explicitly expressed about
the American story
and many of his claims are not based in absence of
some of the references and footnotes, Zinn also
ignoring that in American apparently perfect democracy. In concluding, I shall show that book
changes somebody’s life by changing somebody’s consciousness and we
should learn and know about the truth history.
History of an event that we cannot forget, because of the
absence of our history would not
exist at the time as it is today.
Summary
According to Howard Zinn’s article entitled “Speaking
Truth to Power with Books”, illuminate that a ‘book’ has a powerful effect
which can influences them to aware and changes people’s life. There are several basic points that Zinn
wrote on his article, which gave us insight about book, history and Columbus.
First, book changes somebody’s life by changing somebody’s
consciousness. As Howard Zinn said to
Alice Walker, “What do you think of that book?” She answered “This book changed
my life.” That startled me. But I have heard that many, many times since. “This
book changed my life.” So, yes, I think books can do that. And if a book
changes somebody’s life by changing somebody’s consciousness, it is going to
have an effect on the world, in one way or the other, sooner or later, in ways
that you probably cannot trace.”
Second, Books operate in many ways to change
people’s consciousness. There are a
number of ways in which books can change consciousness. First, introduce an
idea that the reader never thought of before.
Second, told that some policy is in the “national interest,” that
something must be done for “national security, “or “national defence”. Then, give them fact which is the particular
facts are important for somebody to know and there are other facts we are not
going to tell you about, which are not important for you to know. Zinn pondered about “facts, nothing but
facts,” and came to the insight that there are no such things as pure facts
unadorned by judgment. Meanwhile, there
are entire sets of data which people just had no idea about, and which, when
they were revealed in a book, shocked readers into an important awareness.
Then, Zinn reveal the important thing of history and
wrote about truth of America history that we believe finding of America
Continent is Columbus in his famous book “A People’s History of the United
States”. Zinn wrote in his article
that Columbus is not the hero, not the great discoverer, and not the pious
Bible reader whom we ridiculously perceive.
Truly Columbus is a murderer, a torturer, a kidnapper, a mutilator of
native people, a hypocrite, and a greedy man looking for gold, willing to kill
people and mutilate people. So, Zinn
said that if we want to know and learn the history we must learn the facts
about it may lead to a revolution in one’s thinking. When we learn about
information that has been withheld from us, it may lead us to wonder what else
has been withheld.
Main
Body
The book
is the crucial
thing that can
change the paradigm of a person and as a sign
of human civilization. The book consists of a collection of papers and writing,
but the book is
very useful and meaningful to
our life. With a
collection of papers that we can find various
kinds of knowledge that can bring great changes to our survival. Through
books we can also know the awesomeness of a history, which is when we read a
book we can make sense of curiosity towards history and develop and change a
bad thing of history than bobby and can be used as an example in life.
Many people
whose do not understand
how important history. They did not even
bother to care about
what happened in the past. In fact, if we understand the importance of history will provide
insight in understanding life in the future. Directions step today, tomorrow
and beyond turned out to be the impact of the long
process of historical. How past is 'easy' uttered by many
people, including those who only look at the
past with one eye.
In other words, Mikko Lehtonen said in his book “The
Cultural of Analysis Text” that literacy is a social activity by character.
It can best be described as practices on which people draw in different
reading situations. People have various kinds of reading skills, which
they utilize in different ways in different areas of life. However, all
forms of literacy include the ability to control different systems of
symbols through which reality is represented to readers.
As soon as we ridiculously that Columbus as the hero
who is discoverer of America Continent which Morison conceals the fact butcher
this happened in the Indian Arawak although he did not lay about Columbus
cruelty. However, from Zinn’s book we
know the truth story of Christopher Columbus.
We should know the truth history although many people wrote the wrong
story. Moreover, additionally Lehtonen
said in his book ‘The Cultural of Analysis Text’ that “from the
historical point of view the spread of literacy can also be thought to
have had an impact on the changing conception of the human self. In oral
cultures, the self is not necessarily conceived an entity, as in a literary
culture”.
However, there are three points on Columbus that are
neglected in Zinn’s article. First,
Zinn did not explicitly expressed about the
American story, although he knew the entire
story. He did not reveal the true discover of the Americas, he just dare to blaspheme Columbus and
did not reveal who the real discover. This is because his ideology that he is a Jew. So, he hides the actual discovers is
Muslims. That he was taking an
ideological choice in the writing of history, the fact that it emphasizes the
fact that he likes and skips the others. So what is the difference him with Morison?
Zinn is actually nothing more than a boxer from a different ring. “If Morison
wrote of glasses winner, Zinn was the mouthpiece of the losers” said Gde Dwitya.
The second, many of his claims are
not based in absence of some of the references and footnotes. There
are so many hard facts that he should give a note where he got it, but the info
is absent. Zinn's just say at the end of his book that he told all based on the
experience of teaching and of the books which he lists at the end of the page.
Perhaps this is what makes it not been seriously considered in academic
circles.
Likewise Rick
Shenkman faults Zinn for ignoring that in
our apparently perfect democracy it is "the people" who are
responsible for enabling their leaders to get away with doing bad things in
their name, and therefore "leftists" should "focus their ire on
public opinion." He sees an "arch determinism" in A People's
History, which frames "history as a battle between malevolent elites
and darling ordinary people." Shenkman takes Zinn (and other
"left-wingers") to task for failing "to extend the argument as
they properly should have to include the responsibility of ordinary Americans for
our friendship with Saddam [Hussein]" during the 1980s. Shenkman's rather
strange critique slams Zinn for not holding "ordinary Americans" --
say, janitors and fast-food workers -- equally responsible for U.S. foreign
policy as the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Even though there are weaknesses in his book, Zinn remains an inspirational writer who is to emphasize revolutionary movement, untiring
activist and intellectual person. He was lucky enough to experience the
rise and decline of the evil that has shattered the world for the last
century. Within a decade, he traversed from hopelessness to
hope, as he witnessed the revolutionary awakening of people from all walks
of life in many corners of the world.
Howard Zinn brings to Passionate Declarations the same astringent style
and provocative point of view A People's History of the United States.
He directs his critique here to what he calls “American orthodoxies” that set
of beliefs guardians of American culture consider sacrosanct: justifications
for war, cynicism about human nature and violence, pride in their economic
system, certainty of their freedom of speech, romanticized of representative
government, confidence in their system of justice. Those orthodoxies, he
believes, have a chilling effect on our capacity to think independently and to
become active citizens in the long struggle for peace and justice.
Conclusion
In conclusion, therefore here
will be shared little
information about the understanding of history. In the history
of humanity; writing is a much later acquisition than speaking. For
Western citizens at the turn of the millennium, reading and writing seem
the most natural activities in life, but thinking in global and historical
terms they are anything but natural. To
sum up, there are two basic points that can be concluded from Zinn’s article. First, we must exchange our perspective that
book changes our life if we read and understand it. Second, we should learn and know about the
truth history, and then we will know about what happened in the past without
receive the story by merely. History is
an excellent indicator of things to come.
Besides that, our knowledge will be
increasing and changed our mind to be political ideology, so it is can be
useful in our future life. Knowing history also provides a
sense of empowerment to the learner. If a person studies her ancestry or
personal history, this will provide them with a great deal of helpful
information and may assist them in forming an identity of their own.
References
Zinn,
Howard. 2009. Anthropology off the Shelf Anthropologists on Writing:
“Speaking Truth to Power with Book”. UK: Blackwell.
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States.
1492-Present
Lehtonen,
Mikko. 2000. Cultural Analysis of Texts.London: SAGE Publications
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