My obituary of Howard Zinn is in today's Independent; you can link to it here. I was fascinated by his experiences as a B-17 bombadier; he was virtually the same age as one of my uncles, who did the same job during World War II, and was a staunch Democrat; I wondered if the two of them had ever compared notes.My copy of The People's History Of The United States is in a box somewhere in storage; I couldn't check but I assume it was the first paperback edition so I don't know if that puts me among the elite 5,000 or not. But I recall reading it with great pleasure, not just because it was telling me that things I already knew where important, and showing me things I didn't know, but also because of those moments when I'd stop and laugh to myself, 'lighten up, Howard, we could've had a lot worse than Frank D Roosevelt; he wasn't THAT bad!' Of course, the failure, in progressive terms, of the last Democratic administration, and the perception that the current one is headed down the same road, brought neither me nor him pleasure.
I believe the last thing he published was a small piece in the Nation evaluating Obama after one year--he pointed out that one year was far too short a time to be doing evaluations, but allowed as how he was prepared to be disappointed.
