Admiring ... Zirin...does a lively job of portraying the historian’s deeply engaged life ... Zirin’s book evokes these battles well but falls short of being a judicious assessment of his subject. In Zirin’s eyes, Zinn was always right ... The biography also tends toward clichés and overstatements.
The People’s Historian also replicates one of ’s flaws: It can flatten complex problems and people into apparently simple ones ... Zirin’s weakest chapter is the one on A People’s History itself. He has assigned himself the task of defending Zinn from criticisms, even relatively friendly ones ... [An] admiring biography.
Zirin’s fast-paced biography, The People’s Historian, is an answer to the most interesting version of 'What would Howard say?' ... Zirin argues convincingly that Zinn’s life story vindicates one of his deepest convictions: that ordinary people and 'small acts' can change the world ... 'Was he wrong to have faith in the people?' Zirin relates that some of Zinn’s devotees—'those politically raised on his ideas'—have asked him this question, in addition to the one about what he might say in any given situation. Zirin takes up the second query but answers it far less satisfactorily than the first.
Zirin’s book earns its place alongside Martin Duberman’s adroit 2012 biography, Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left, even as it veers into sentimentality ... Where Duberman was willing to candidly address Zinn’s flaws—his self-absorption, his professionally lopsided marriage, and a work ethic that seemed to feed on notoriety—Zirin largely shields his subject from critical scrutiny. More importantly, he fails to rigorously engage with the more credible scholarly critiques of Zinn’s work, treating his subject as almost beyond reproach. As a result, Zirin’s biography functions less as a detailed portrait of a man than as an inspirational manual for contemporary endurance.
