Howard Zinn's Article

Howard Zinn’s article Columbus, the Indians and Human Progress not only looks at Columbus’s discovery of the new world from a different perspective but he also makes generalizations and conclusions about history itself. Zinn uses a lot of his article to explain how in most history books and sources it just talks about Columbus going on a voyage and establishing a new world that Spain would have control over. These history sources forget to mention all the killing and enslavement that took place when Columbus and his crew arrived here. Zinn goes out on a limb by criticizing sources for leaving out this part of history. Basically, Zinn is looking to make the point that more often times than not history is written how those in power want to portray it.
Zinn argues that without history there can be no progress. This statement is so true. How can we not learn from history and keep from repeating the same mistakes if the history lessons we are being taught from an early age are leaving out some of the most important parts of certain events.
The biggest question in my mind while reading this article was how different would our lives be today had we known all that happened with the founding of our country? Would other mass killings and wiping out of groups of people been avoided? As a country would we still be so judgmental of people and have as much hate or perhaps even more? When reading this whole piece all I could about was why as a sophomore in college having been through year after year of history lessons have I never heard about the “other” side of the founding of our nation. I couldn’t help but feeling a little angry with never being exposed to all the truths. It really opened my eyes to the true events and what really happened.