March 27, 2025
MM#399--Getting American History Right: Why Howard Zinn's People's History Gets It Wrong
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The battle for America's historical narrative has never been more consequential. When Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" claims that "Lincoln initiated hostilities by trying to repossess the federal base at Fort Sumter," it fundamentally misrepresents the spark that ignited the Civil War. This seemingly small distortion reveals a much larger problem with how many Americans are learning their own history.
As we fight for historical literacy, remember that understanding our true past – with all its triumphs and failures – is essential for building a better future. Join us as we continue challenging historical misrepresentations and championing works that get the American story right.
Key Points from the Episode:
• Howard Zinn claimed Lincoln "initiated hostilities by trying to repossess" Fort Sumter, a federal base already under Union control
• Primary sources show Lincoln sent only supplies to the fort, not troops, and notified Confederate authorities in advance
• Confederate forces fired first, before supply ships even arrived, contradicting Zinn's version
• Zinn's Marxist reinterpretation consistently misrepresents historical events to fit his ideological framework
• Three recommended alternatives: McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom," McClay's "Land of Hope," and Johnson's "History of the American People"
• Teaching distorted history in high schools creates students who "hate the country" because "they've been lied to"
• Americans deserve accurate history that acknowledges both flaws and achievements
Let's keep fighting the good fight and let's read the good history books.
Other resources:
MM#129--Debunking the Lies of History
PragerU--the book that poisoned a generation
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Chapters
00:00 - Welcome to Theory to Action
00:42 - Howard Zinn's Fort Sumter Claim
02:49 - Debunking Zinn's Historical Fabrication
07:03 - Three Superior American History Books
12:03 - The Importance of Factual History
Transcript
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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.
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Now here's your host, david Kaiser flourishing life.
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Now here's your host, David Kaiser.
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Hello, I am David.
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Welcome back to another Mojo Minute, as is our custom most of the time.
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Let's kick it off with our opening quote from the book.
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Behind the secession of the South from the Union after Lincoln was elected president in the fall of 1860 as candidate of the new Republican Party, was a long series of policy clashes between the South and North.
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The clash was not over slavery as a moral institution.
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Most Northerners did not care about slavery to make sacrifices for it, certainly not the sacrifice of war.
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But it was not a clash of peoples.
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Most Northern whites were not economically favored, not politically powerful, and most Southern whites were poor farmers, not decision makers, but of elites.
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The Northern elite wanted economic expansion, free land, free labor, a free market and a high protective tariff for manufacturers, a bank of the United States.
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The slave interest opposed all of that.
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They saw Lincoln and the Republicans as making continuation of their pleasant and prosperous way of life impossible in the future.
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Here's the kicker.
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So when Lincoln was elected, seven southern states seceded from the Union.
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Lincoln initiated hostilities by trying to repossess the federal base at Fort Sumter, south Carolina, and four more states seceded.
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The Confederacy was formed.
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The Civil War was on and that folks comes to us from, unfortunately.
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Folks comes to us from, unfortunately, howard Zinn's People's History of the United States and my Lord does.
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He get the history of that time period wrong, most especially in his facts.
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So let's break this down so that you know the actual facts and not the radical Marxist reinterpretation of those facts by Howard Zinn, which is what his history book does time and time again.
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Here's the context from all the primary sources of the time.
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Fort Sumter, located in Charleston Harbor, south Carolina, was a federal installation under Union control when Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861.
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After seven southern states seceded following his election in November 1860, the fort remained in Union hands, but its garrison, led by Major Robert Anderson, was running low on supplies, especially food.
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South Carolina, which was now part of the Confederacy, demanded its surrender, viewing it as a foreign outpost in their territory.
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So by April of 1861, the situation was at a standoff.
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Lincoln as president now, because remember, the president took office in March of 1861, not in January like we do now.
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So Lincoln as president, aiming to avoid war while asserting federal authority, decided to send a relief expedition of unarmed ships carrying food and supplies, and not troops to resupply Fort Sumter and here's the key point that Zinn leaves out.
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That has been in primary source documents forever.
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President Lincoln notified South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens of the plan on April 6th 1861, emphasizing it was a non-aggressive act unless it was met with hostility.
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The Confederacy, however, saw this as a provocation and on April 12th opened fire before another key point, before the supply ships even arrived, forcing Anderson's surrender after 34 hours of bombardment.
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And that is how the Civil War started.
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Lincoln didn't aim to repossess the fort it was already union-held but to sustain it without escalating tensions into full conflict.
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Zinn's wording at least in his 2003 Harper Collins edition of the People's History, on page 188, when he said Lincoln initiated hostilities by trying to repossess the federal base at Fort Sumter, south Carolina.
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That phrasing is imprecise, sloppy and distorts the event.
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Repossess implies Lincoln was trying to retake a fort that he had lost, which isn't true.
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Fort Sumter was never a Confederate-controlled before the attack.
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Lincoln's action was simply a resupply mission, not a military reoccupation.
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Zinn's choice of words suggests a more aggressive intent by the president than the historical record supports.
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Intent by the president than the historical record supports, aligning with his broader narrative of Lincoln as a pragmatic manipulator rather than a defender of union principles.
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How bad is the error?
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Factually, howard Zinn's wrong here, especially in the event sequence, but also by mischaracterizing Lincoln's move.
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The resupply effort was a calculated gamble.
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Lincoln knew it might provoke the Confederacy, but he wasn't launching an assault or reclaiming lost ground.
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The good historians like James McPherson and the Battle Cry of Freedom note Lincoln's strategy was to force the Southerners' hand.
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Either let the fort stand as a federal garrison or start a war that they're going to be blamed for.
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Confederate leaders fearing a fortified Union presence chose the bombardment over the negotiation.
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Union presence chose the bombardment over the negotiation.
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Howard Zinn's history is just total fabrication.
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It's sloppy, it biases the actual facts.
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Repossession exaggerates Lincoln's role and it just feeds Howard Zinn's thesis that the war was less about slavery or the Union and more about elite power plays, which is hogwash.
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We know now, 160 years later, that the Civil War was primarily fought because of slavery.
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It's a subtle but telling example of how Howard Zinn blends facts to fit his lens.
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But as we've detailed from this microphone before, howard Zinn is a radical Marxist.
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His version of history is unfortunately being taught in many, many high school history classrooms.
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Now check out our podcast where we covered a great book which goes into more details about how bad this book is.
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It is Mary Graybar's Debunking Howard Zinn, and she actually has a wonderful PragerU video as well, and the PragerU video has tons of footnotes so you can do your own research on that as well.
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We'll put both of those in the show notes.
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So it's no wonder we have young folks who are radicals.
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Now they hate the country.
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Why?
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Because they've been lied to about the country time and time again.
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So, to be productive, howard Zinn's People's History of the United States isn't the gold standard that people think it is.
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So let's talk about three better alternatives that can give you a sharper and much fairer look at the American story, because it's a unique story, it's an exceptional story and our first book is one we just mentioned.
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Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson Book is a Pulitzer winning deep dive into the Civil War era, slavery, sectionalism and all the chaos that came with it.
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Mcpherson does an excellent job of blending the military, the political and the social history of the time and he doesn't shy away from the hard truths, like the brutality of slavery or the Southern's or the South's stubbornness.
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But he's also there to not lecture you like Howard Zinn does.
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Instead he sticks to the facts the economic power of cotton, lincoln's shifting views and more.
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Now, it's not a broad treatise of the whole time period before beginning and end, but it's spot on where it counts and it's a good one.
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Volume history it might be a little too much for high schoolers, but our number two selection is perfect for high schoolers and that number two selection is land of hope.
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We've covered it here on this podcast by Wilford McClay.
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Now this one is fresh, made for classrooms, with a reflective, optimistic tone, and again, it doesn't ignore the tough stuff.
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Mcclay takes you through it all, from the colonies to today.
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He points out sins like imperialism of Teddy Roosevelt, but he also celebrates the resiliency and the democratic grit of most Americans throughout our 250 years.
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It's a way it's far and away less preachy than Howard Zinn's rant and it offers some good right-wing rebuttals.
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It's well-researched, certainly, and gives you the space to wrestle with the story yourself, and it's perfect if you're looking for a good balance instead of a ranting lecture that most of the time, as we've seen, when Howard Zinn never gets his facts right.
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Our third one, number three, is A History of the American People by Paul Johnson.
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Now this is the conservative counterpunch to Zinn.
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Johnson leans hard into American exceptionalism, especially capitalism, ingenuity, religious freedom, but he still acknowledges the flaws of our country, like slavery, our first original sin.
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It's pro-Western, which I love.
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It's the opposite of Zinn's more critical take on everything.
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Now some say it downplays native suffering.
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I'm not so sure, but still it's clear, it's optimistic and it's a solid story of the American story if you're looking for a different perspective.
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So in today's Mojo Minute we have to know our history, our US history, with the facts.
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We have to get the facts right, not people lying to us about what the facts are.
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It's not like that was a 400-level college class and all the students had been through the US Civil War history two or three times.
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So they have a good, captured idea of the facts.
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And now we can read Howard Zinn to offer a critical take.
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No, you can't teach Howard Zinn in high school when most of the kids have never been through the history in the first place.
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They need to have a good foundation of what the facts are.
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Hell, in my history class in high school we never even got to the Civil War.
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We ran out of time by the end of the year.
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So I had to learn it deeply in college and thank you for my history professors teaching me, not not from Howard Zinn, thank God, but from the real historians who had read the primary sources and wanted to give you the facts.
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Thank you, battle Cry of Freedom.
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Let's pray that more Americans search out those facts.
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We deserve that, we Americans deserve that, and America herself deserves that.
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God knows, over the years we've all earned it.
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As always, let's keep fighting the good fight and let's read the good history books.
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Thank you for joining us.
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We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast.
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Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.
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Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.
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