What Howard Zinn Got Wrong

“What would Howard say?” This question, which Dave Zirin reports being “asked repeatedly” while he was working on his new biography of Howard Zinn, underscores how unusual a figure his subject cut in contemporary American life. Most historians live and die in relative obscurity. But 16 years after Zinn’s death, many people still look to him, not just as a scholar but as a kind of sage. Zinn first became famous—and, in some circles, infamous—after the 1980 publication of his best-selling work A…