7.  Howard Zinn's "A People's History of Hugh Prestwood"

 

But first -- from the Atlantic, the New Criterion and the NY Times regardng Zinn's A People's History of the United States:

 

Of course, democracies need skepticism too, and lots of it. But, in general, they should avoid reserving their biggest, most prominent platforms to those who dress up half-boiled theories as raw, unexamined truths. Barton and Zinn haven't just revised earlier scholarship; they have snuck up from behind and bludgeoned it. In the process, they have undermined the trust and sense of common purpose that is essential to understanding our past -- and to democratic life itself. -- The Atlantic – July 2012

 

 

Zinn’s story—noble savages oppressed by nasty capitalists—was calculated to appeal to the politically correct, anti-American spirit that has been regnant among the country’s elites since the late 1960s. . . . hatred of humanity is the dominant tone of Zinn’s book. . .  

 

                                                 Howard Zinn, pictured here with several research assistants

 

 

In Mr. Zinn’s effort to tell “the other side of the story,” he dramatically distorted events on both sides and reduced the complexities of international politics to a struggle between good and evil.

 

. . . he was determined to write history as a story of American malfeasance. The result, among students who embraced his ideas, is a sort of facile cynicism posing as sophistication, and, perhaps worse, the tragically fatalistic idea that American history is little more than a conspiracy against humanity.

 

 

NY Times, June 2007 . . . But as Zinn himself points out about his discipline, telling the truth is not Job 1 for historians. Editing and motivating are. The goal is to “pick and choose among facts” so as to “shape the ideas and beliefs” that will “help us imagine new possibilities for the future.” . . . If the writing of history is, by definition, a crafty manipulation of people’s minds meant to sway them, then why should the writers of constitutions be expected to operate any differently? And if the facts can be massaged at will to serve the interests of the masseuses, why even bother with facts at all, since lies would work well, too? Indeed, if all is sophistry and power, why not just let the best man win? So what if he happens to be rich and white? -- Walter Kirn 

“I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties."  -- Howard Zinn

 

So . . . regarding Howard Zinn’s The People's History of Hugh Prestwood – have you read it?

 

Yeah – that’s really me in there alright.  It’s all true.  The biography is filled with actual, provable facts.  Man -- he thoroughly dug up every mistake I’d ever made – it’s all documented.  I come off as a total rat/loser.

He starts out writing about how lazy I was as a kid –

how hard it was to get me to do any chores around the house.  My mother practically had to pull a gun on me before I’d take out the garbage.   (He interviewed my ex-step-father who gave him many examples of what a useless bum I was.)

 

   

And Mr. Zinn has a chapter on my high school daze – how I was chubby and acne-cursed; 

 

 

and  he interviewed the teachers I’d had –

  -- the ones who’d taught courses I’d failed (they saw no promise in me whatsoever); he dug up my old report cards glaring with my D’s and F’s.  He goes into how I was held back a semester when I was a junior because I’d flunked so many classes.  I was definitely a screwed-up loser.

 

He gets into my high school social life -- or lack thereof too.  Ouch!!  He interviewed girls who wouldn’t give me the time of day –

 and that was pretty much all of them.

 

Regarding my college days, he wrote all about how I’d flunked out my sophomore year because I’d fallen in love for the first time and – wouldn’t you know it -- it wasn’t reciprocated. 

  

Mr. Zinn also writes a lot about how I wrecked my first marriage by getting involved with this

 18-year-old blonde I’d met

in this club my band was playing in - and how, as a result, I’d stupidly, selfishly trashed my “straight life” and ended up disgraced and moving to New York as much to save face as to try and make it as a singer/songwriter.  He devotes several pages on how I didn’t pay my child support for a couple of years.   Plus -- he in-depth interviewed my ex-wife all about it – he got a lot of truth from her. 

She really clued him in on how I’d nearly  -- ruined her life.  

 

In the chapter on my early days in Manhattan,

 he features that time I stole that box of stamped envelopes (worth about $100) from where I was working to buy a cassette recorder so I could make song demos, and he writes all about that landlord I stiffed for a month’s rent when I moved out in the dead of night. 

Regarding my so-called  "adult" life, for one chapter he interviewed in-depth the hyper-volatile woman I got seriously involved with 

but we had frightening physical fights where the police had to be called.  She tried to have me arrested.

 

Zinn really crucifies me in the chapter about my history of infidelities and my very regrettable heavy-handed flirtations with some of my friends' wives. 

 

   

Regarding my songwriting, a good portion of the history is about all the songs I’ve written that aren’t all that great and didn’t get cut and Zinn even found a couple of

big league producers who detested my writing and confided they thought I was lucky to have had any success at all.

Zinn's final nail in my coffin is his chapter about my attempt to highjack an airplane -- how I was arrested going through security with a .38 in my carry-on bag.  Yeah, and how I did time for my crime.  What a nightmare.  I'll spare you the details - you can pick up the book and read all about it. 

 Below is the cover Zinn picked out for the biography.  (That's my Zinn-mother in the background.)

  

      Howard Zinn's The People's History of Hugh Prestwood

 

Of course, regarding all these shortcomings and sins, there’s a whole lot more to the stories – mitigating stuff -- and I think there are many good, positive things I've done in my life that Zinn didn't bother to write about -- and I didn't ruin my ex-wife's life and I did graduate from college and

 I did have some  success and I've been very happily married for 30 years and my kids turned out great -- and there are a few people who have known me pretty well for a long time and actually think I’m a relatively kind, loving, and talented human being.

But – Mr. Zinn -- he wasn’t interested in that "whole" version -- including that "better side" -- of my life.   I think he disliked me from the gitgo and just wrote my history to nail me.  He did an excellent job – and damn it -- I swear to God there’s not a lie in the whole book -- and yet -- I don't think it's true at all -- not at all.  Go figure.