There are now six Bainbridge Island 11th graders who are being privately tutored in American History because they and their parents object to a textbook used in American Studies class authored by a man said to be “the most influential historian in America.”

The book is “A People’s History of the United States 1492-Present” by Howard Zinn, whose influence is such, according to Daniel J. Flynn, executive director of Accuracy in Academia, because the book is assigned reading in many colleges and high schools.

It still sells over 128,000 copies a year, 20 years after its publication.

Zinn, says Flynn, in an eight-page review for the Center for History, is “an unreconstructed anti-American Marxist,” and “a master of cheap Marxist propaganda. His book is a dagger aimed at the heart of the country that has given him more freedom than most of the writers who have ever written and made him a millionaire in the process.”

The book apparently has been in use at Bainbridge High School for most of the 20 years it has been in print. Eric Foner, New York Times book reviewer, said of it, “Historians may well view it as a step toward a coherent new version of American history.” Foner also is a leftist, says Flynn.

The book came into my hands from a neighbor who took his son out of the American Studies class after reading the book. “I wouldn’t mind if it was labeled A Marxist-Leninist View of American History,” he said, “but it isn’t. I think the book has done harm to our young people because it teaches them to distrust our government. The question is how can our kids pass an American history test with this kind of garbage?”

Zinn is described on the book jacket as a historian, playwright and social activist. He was a shipyard worker and Air Force bombardier before he went to college under the GI bill and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught at several colleges.

I didn’t have time to read all 776 pages but I did read the chapter on wars which says “For the U.S. to step forward as a defender of helpless countries matches its image in American high school history textbooks, but not its record in world affairs.” He goes on to list our actions in everything from the Haitian revolution in the 1800s on, in all of which we were just looking out for No. 1.

Zinn suggests we didn’t have to drop the bomb in World War II if only we had agreed to let the Japanese emperor remain in office, and that the main reason we did it was we’d invested too much money and effort in creating it not to use it. Flynn says he fails to mention Americans were first in flight, first to fly across the Atlantic, first to walk on the moon. Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk and the Wright Brothers are entirely absent, instead the reader is treated to the exploits of Speckled Snake, Joan Baez and the Berrigan Brothers. A slanderous tome, says Flynn.

Bainbridge school superintendent Ken Crawford said he had received no complaints and had not read the book, but the district has a committee of parents and teachers that reviews all student reading material, and has a policy that “if you present material that is of a controversial nature, you have to present a balance. We do that.”

Faith Chapel, curriculum director and associate superintendent, said she had not received any complaints. It is school policy to expose students to a variety of perspectives and cultures in American history, she said, and she cited “Unfinished Nation” by Alan Brinkley and Edmond Morgan’s “The Birth of the Republic” as books that provide a different perspective than Zinn. She has not read the Zinn book although she has looked at it, she said. All class reading material is periodically reviewed and American Studies is due. “If a parent has an objection to book material, we have a policy where they can formally challenge the materials.”

Is this book being used in your high school? Take a look at it. See what you think.

Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340.