Wilentz is a tool; I wouldn't go out of my way to read anything by him. (I've been holding my breath for something similar from Mike Kazin, who is a friend and who also attacked Zinn. He's somewhere to the left of Wilentz.)
I've been watching the series, enjoying it. The adulation for Roosevelt's progressive impulses seems a little stretched. There are certainly debatable historical claims in it, but the stock right-wing objection as a Stalin apologia is totally inaccurate. I think it's important for everyone to push back on any attacks, such as from Wilentz, since the underlying issues are central to any analysis of U.S. foreign policy, today no less than yesterday. On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 11:16 AM, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Mr. Andrew Goldman, > > First of all, let me congratulate you on being reinstated as a NY Times > Magazine contributor after being suspended for tweeting a remark about > Tippi Hendren sleeping her way into a job acting in Alfred Hitchcock's > "Birds". Since we know what stiff competition it is in becoming a hack > for the Gray Lady, I can only wonder who you slept with to crawl your > way to the top of journalism. But Whoever you decide to fuck with, my > guess is that it was your hatchet job on Oliver Stone's Showtime series > on American history in the 20th century that greased your way back in to > the paper's good graces. It is not only well-written but deeply schooled > in the art of deviation and misdirection so enshrined there. > > While most NY Times readers will not have a clue how your hands were > helping to tip the scales of justice to one side against Stone, I do. > > You deploy two experts on American history to rebut Stone, one from the > "right", the other from the "left". While Ronald Radosh's credentials as > a rightist are well-established through his advocacy for Francisco > Franco, it is rather mischievous to invoke Sean Wilentz as some kind of > leftist given his hatchet job on Howard Zinn, another historian who > dared to present a "revisionist" take on American history. > > As I pointed out in > http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/howard-zinns-detractors/, > Sean Wilentz took the opportunity of Zinn's passing in 2010 to piss on > his grave in the L.A. Times, saying "What he did was take all of the > guys in white hats and put them in black hats, and vice versa." You knew > what you were doing when you passed Wilentz off as a "leftist" and I > knew what you were doing as well. > > Yours truly, > > Louis Proyect > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l >
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