Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present has always been a controversial book. We are taught as young students that history is made by monarchs, emperors, presidents, generals and industrialists who created the modern world, the only world that can be. The overwhelming majority of humanity is putty shaped by these great men, and we should all be grateful for what they have bestowed upon us.

Professor Zinn’s work is a direct challenge to such narratives, illuminating the struggles of ordinary people against the dominant classes through long periods of history and the violence that accompanies the creation and maintenance of institutional inequality. The potent challenge that People’s History represents more than 30 years after its first printing is demonstrated by a vitriolic attack on it published in the magazine of the American Federation of Teachers, American Educator.

The article, “Undue Certainty,” was brought to my attention by a dedicated New York City high school teacher who is not confident that the AFT will publish a response. The author of the article, Sam Wineburg, could not long maintain his mask of neutrality despite his attempts to root his challenge in a supposed concern for “balance.” A perusal of Professor Wineburg’s curriculum vitae shows no obvious ideological slant, and I shall not attempt to assign him one. Moreover, he took pains to write from a centrist position. Nonetheless, his false equivalences between Right and Left ultimately ring hollow, and his assertions that he is standing up to the “dominant narrative” of People’s History badly at odds with reality.

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