Best to all,
JIM

Zinn is clearly influential; if we disagree with much – like myself – or even all he claims, all the more reason to include it in a critical class. Look, you can’t hide stuff from students; It’s on the internet waiting to be found. Better – for their intellectual development AND respect for their elders – to discuss it openly.

But I do have to side with the Levin crew on this one. I know, it is what you would expect. But as a teacher, we need to provide different viewpoints to our kids. They need to be able to think critically and draw conclusions about what they read.

Chris, could I get the names of the books you would call…Historically Accurate? I am reminded of a talk William C. Davis gave on C-Span (I think) about his book “Look Away”. He said that history should not be in the social studies department, but in the English department. His reason was that history is not what really happened, but what people wrote about what happened. Finding a historically accurate text on American history might just be near impossible. Best of luck though!

“You are accusing me of using anecdotal evidence?” Yes, because you did.

“To say that most of my posts are simply a political expression is ridiculous.” Never said that. More obfuscation.

Peter:

Regarding my post to which you referred, what would you call the teaching of Darwinist theory, moral relativism, and social views often objected to by parents? Yes, that is obfuscation since we were specifically discussing the use of Zinn’s book.

I admitted in my original post here that everyone approaches history from a particular perspective, however slight that may be. I, too, could pull post examples from Kevin’s site, but anyone familiar with it already knows his perspective.

Chris:

Thanks for staying on topic. Zinn’s books is widely used and influential.

Best to all.

RGW

In response to others, I will say that perhaps my wording that Zinn’s book has no place in schools was probably not the best choice. I simply do not trust how it would be used, but everyone is convinced it is to stimulate discussion, so be it.
C

Listen, over at Kevin’s blog everyone was having a good time laughing at Mr. Williams, stating that Zinn’s book is NOT used by scholars. I simply did a search and found it WIDELY listed on many syllabi thus suggesting it might indeed be used.

THUS in review, I do not know how it is used, why it is used, and or for what purposes. I simply pointed out it is used and I’m sure in most cases these are good scholars with no political agenda and are using the book for, as everyone says, “critical thinking” and for controversial ideas to stimulate discussion. I’m sure there is nothing else going on…… it seems all of you are far more intelligent than I and would know better.

Thanks for the posts.

Many thanks for doing the grunt work on this issue. I sat down this morning and read through 19 of the syllabi you provided (I confess that I skipped the one from Hong Kong) and here’s what I found:

6 history professors and 1 high school teacher use at is the main required text (including one from that bastion of liberalism, BYU).
3 use one chapter in connection with other readings. One wonders how.
1 uses 2 chapters. Again, I’d like to know how.
3 use it in conjunction with Paul Johnson’s text, a book usually deemed as conservative as Zinn is leftist.
1 included it among a page-long list of books one could read.

Now of course, your 19 syllabi admittedly only form a sample of what you found on Google (8 of at least 27 pages), so my numbers are only a sample as well. Instead of 6 profs using it as THE text, you might end up with three of four times that number.

Then again, how many syllabi make it online. (Here’s mine by the way, no Zinn: http://www.auburn.edu/~noekenn/History2010.pdf). The final numbers no doubt are higher still.

But I don’t think even those stats suggest that the book is widely used or influential in academic circles (Currently, according to the best numbers I could find, there are 18,263 people teaching history at the university level*). A relative handful thus seem to use it (as many as 300 would be 1.6 percent, too many in my opinion, but still a small percentage), others pull out a chapter for one reason or another, and some use it as Kevin does, balanced by Johnson. I just don’t see that supporting the notion of “widespread” liberal/marxist bias in academe.

Of course we need still more evidence. I applaud Mr. Williams for e-mailing the publisher, and I’ll be curious to read the results. It might also be fun to do a comparable search on other standard history texts in comparison. Heck, there’s probably an OAH Newsletter article in this for someone interested in stats and teaching.

One last point: just for the record I’m not Kevin’s “follower,” just his friend, and someone who also grows weary of being stereotyped.

Best, Ken

*http://phdinhistory.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-many-history-phds-became-full-time.html

Chris, — As I stated in my comment there is nothing mysterious about why I decided not to post the results of my search. In fact, it was for the very same reasons you alluded to in the post. Of course a search for Howard Zinn’s book in the classroom will bring up a list of courses, but what are we to make of it? How many classes have been taught on the high school and college level that span the time of the list and what overall percentage does it constitute? It seems to me that without anything approaching a scientific investigation the conclusions are pretty much worthless. How many history, gender studies, political science, anthropology classes were included?

I guess we will disagree over the appropriateness of using the book in class. I just hope, in contrast to Richard, that you will not infer from my using it that my intention is to brainwash my students or pass it off as something that it is not. My syllabus has also included books and articles by Paul Johnson and other conservatives. Are these dangerous texts? I’ve had parents who have also complained about my use of Eric Foner’s new survey as dangerous. Perhaps it is.