[Marxism] From Hungary to Historiography

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 A lot of that literature is what historians call "secondary source"
material.  It is always best to go to the primary sources.  One can use
the citations and references from the secondaries as guides to go to the
primaries and thereby dodge the conclusions various authors make in
their more opinionated secondaries.  I was turned on to this tactic by a
leftish professor who advised me not to cite Noam Chomsky because others
in the academy bristle as soon as they see the name "Chomsky" in a
footnote, endnote, citation, or other works cited, and may be then
prejudiced against my work.  Fortunately, Chomsky provides generous and
detailed references and thus can be rightfully called "useful" in the
historiographical sense.  One can go to the sources he cites and then
put them to direct use.

In the same sense, Howard Zinn's more popular histories are not as
useful because of their more vague references.  See for example "A
People's History of the United States" (2003).  For a subject that Mark
Lause took up, the "Haymarket Affair," the Index directs the reader to
page 272.  The story, however, begins on page 270 in Chapter 11, "Robber
Barons and Rebels."  There are no direct references.  The Bibliography
provides books listed per chapter.  One of the many books listed for
Chapter 11 is "A History of Haymarket Affair," by Henry David (New York:
Collier, 1963).  The Index also gives a second location for the
"Haymarket Affair" on page 321 at the beginning of Chapter 13, "The
Socialist Challenge" but that is only in passing to color an
introduction for a quote from Emma Goldman.  That quote is not cited,
that is there is no endnote or footnote that directs the reader to a
precise page in a specific text, so if one wished to find it one would
have to look over the list of books for Chapter 13 and guess from
there.  That is why a historian would say that "A People's History of
the United States" is not "useful".  But that is in the
historiographical sense.  Historians do not (generally) discredit Zinn's
"People's History" because he has a proven record of scholarly work in
the field, and be assured that those antagonistic to Zinn's analysis
would eagerly pounce on any factual errors if they could find them --
plus Zinn expressly did not write this particular book for historians.
Furthermore, when in consideration of its readability (accessibility),
content, and analysis, as I am sure we would all agree on this list, the
great popularity of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United
States" certainly does have a manifest utility.

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