Howard Zinn: The Interpretation of History (1997; must-see)

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

with Howard Zinn
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally posted February 5, 2014
October 1, 2017

“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” — George Orwell, 1984

The Film Archives on Dec 23, 2013

A people’s history, history from below, or folk history is a type of historical narrative which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people rather than political and other leaders.

A people’s history (otherwise known as social history) is the history of the world that is the story of mass movements and of the outsiders. Individuals not included in the past in other type of writing about history are part of history-from-below theory’s primary focus, which includes the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the poor, the nonconformists, the subaltern and the otherwise forgotten people. This theory also usually focuses on events occurring in the fullness of time, or when an overwhelming wave of smaller events cause certain developments to occur.

This revisionist approach to writing history is in direct opposition to methods which tend to emphasize single great figures in history, referred to as the great man theory; it argues that the driving factor of history is the daily life of ordinary people, their social status and profession. These are the factors that “push and pull” on opinions and allow for trends to develop, as opposed to great people introducing ideas or initiating events.

In his book A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn wrote: “The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.”

Transcript

from the archives:

Chris Hedges and Eric Foner: Not Just the History That Those in Power Want Us to Remember

John Pilger: The Truth Game (1983)

Untold Truths About the American Revolution by Howard Zinn (2009)

Peter Linebaugh: The Untold History of Independence Day

Howard Zinn: Myths of the Good Wars (Three Holy Wars) (must-see)

Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress by Howard Zinn

A People’s History of American Empire by Howard Zinn