Zinn opens
with an account, from the Arawak Indian point of view, of the horrific slaughter and suffering
that came to them and Indians on other nearby islands when Columbus and his followers arrived.
Zinn states that the genocide inflicted on the Indians is not ignored, but quickly brushed over
by traditional historians such as Samuel Eliot Morison, encouraging us as readers to slide over
it as well. What is traditionally emphasized in histories, at least up until 1980, when Zinn
published this book, is the Western achievement in gaining the New World. Atrocity is brushed
aside and justified as the price of progress. This, Zinn says, is simply one version of history,
one that chooses to side with the ruling classes in society. As Zinn puts it,
The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is
ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis
supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic
or...
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