Oh, dear. I wonder what you're a professor of. Certainly not history, as you seem not to know it. I have read your Howard Zinn. A sociologist friend gave me a copy of
A People's History of the United States when it first came out. Having only a couple of years earlier finished my field exams in American history, I was appalled at the errors and blatant Marxism and anti-Americanism of Zinn's work. He has stated explicitly in other writings that he regards making his political point more important than historical accuracy. As my children have been forced to read Zinn in their high school honors history classes, I reread the book and came away with an even more unfavorable impression than I had originally formed. I cannot respect his work, or take him seriously.
The truly astonishing thing is that you can remain a Marxist (calling yourself commieprof strongly suggests this) after 1989 and the fall of the Soviet empire. The revelations that have come to light in the past dozen or so years make it clear that Marxism in Russia and Eastern Europe was a thug's game and morally bankrupt from the get-go. Virtually all of the charges levelled against Marxims by the right - from von Mieses on the economics side to Popper on the philosophy side and Koestler and even Whittaker Chambers, turned out to be not only true, but understated. Have you read The Black Book of Communism? Edited by Frenchmen and the work of European scholars, many with leftist credentials, the work is damning.
It used to be said (variously attributed to Clemanceau, Churchill and several others) that anyone who was not a socialist at 18 had no heart, and anyone who was not a conservative at 40 had no brains. More truly, it must be said that anyone who remains a Marxist after 1989 is either an idiot, a naive fool, or a power-hungry enemy of mankind.
I haven't been in school for nearly 40 years. When I was it was in the hard sciences - but I had a lot of friends in politics and the arts, and I enjoyed them immensely. Their professors could really talk and spun a wonderful web. I remember a popular book of the time - The Excremental Vision. I may have read a chapter or two. I didn't care whether it was true or not. It was vastly inventive and entertaining.
Now, when I read the work of commieprof I am appalled. Have things changed so much or was I merely young when I formed those opinions?
Excellent!! Will Ms. Commieprof respond? HA! Fergetaboutit!