And if you've come this far mister maybe we're one and the same

Eric Michael Johnson has a nice memorial on Howard Zinn.

I have been a fan of Zinn since my freshman year of college. I was taking History 101, a required course. I'd always liked history, but not the history taught in school . I liked biographies, and adult history books where they explored the complexities and nuances of events and people rather than the jingoistic whitewash we were given in high school. I was dreading the class.

The first day he talked about all the housekeeping like syllabus, grading, attendance, etc. And then he said "Now, I know you're all 19 or 20 and you've had 12 years of history classes in school and you're thinking 'Why am I wasting my time going over all this again, I already know it all and it's boring.' Well, in this class we're going to learn about what *really* happened." After that first day I moved up to the front row and was fully engaged in history class for the first time ever.

Our texts were Michael Parenti's "The Sword and the Dollar: an economic history of the United States" and Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". I think Zinn's book in particular should be required reading for all high school students. The book was gripping, disturbing, enlightening, invigorating, infuriating, and inspirational. I reread sections of it frequently and it holds a prominent place on my bookshelf along with "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" and "The Zinn Reader".

I always figured Chomsky would die first.