How good is this book?

>>2314635

Depends what you mean. It's full of lies and distortions but it's very persuasive and radical leftists consider it legit.

>>2314660
never read it......

is it Guns, Germs and Steel levels of shit?

>>2314665

No, Zinn is a real historian, Diamond is literally an ornithologist. The problem with this book is that Zinn is completely committed to his ideology (Marxism) and so filters everything thru that lens. His book is "wrong" because of this bias, not because he's an idiot writing about things he has zero knowledge of, as with Diamond.

>>2314700
>No, Zinn is a real historian,


New to the thread, but I wouldn't consider him as such. Zinn's entire methodology runs counter to history as a discipline. Yes, you can never get complete objectivity. But whereas a real historian acknowledges that and tries to minimize bias wherever possible and cites as much as he can to invite the reader to check against his conclusions and sampling.

Zinn says that the entire idea is a waste of time and effort, and applies a marketplace of ideas methodology; he writes his slant, and at least admits to it, and thinks that other people should push their ideas by writing with their slants.

He's not a historian, he's a journalist writing about the past instead of the usual sort who writes about the present.

>>2314717

He's an ideologue who approaches history thru a dialectical materialist perspective, but that doesn't make him /not/ an historian, it just makes him a useless one.

>>2314778
>>2314717
>>2314700
>>2314660

So this isnt a good book to get a better understanding of American history?

>>2314800

It contains true things but unfortunately it also contains outright lies, and there is no way to determine which is which simply by reading it. If you already know American History it can be an interesting read but if you;re new to the subject it's a waste of time.

>>2314804
What would be a good book to start with?

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>>2314807

>>2314820
Is this a text book?

>>2314778

>He's an ideologue who approaches history thru a dialectical materialist perspective, but that doesn't make him /not/ an historian, it just makes him a useless one.

The problem isn't his perspective, or even his bias. It's that he doesn't try to suppress his bias, and argues that nobody else should either. That, not his specific bias, is what disqualifies him.