Zinn Case Study

Discussion 6:

Question 1: Zinn portrays the Nixon presidency in general as a failure all on its own and the Watergate scandal adding to the failure as a dirty play by Nixon. Zinn thinks Nixon was involved in “dirty tricks” because he thinks Nixon knew all about and personally orchestrated the Watergate scandal. He proves this by telling us that top Republican and Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives that they would not support any criminal proceedings against him.

Question 2: Schweikart and Allen’s interpretation of this period in American history is different from Zinn’s because he tells more of and focuses on the achievements and victories of this period of time while Zinn tells of the good and bad and focuses mostly on the

Zinn presents his information in a way that he looks at the good and bad the same, focuses a little bit more on the bad than good but is not inclined one way or the other too much if at all.

Question 2: The overall view of Schweikart and Allen is patriotic, showing that even through the bad things The United States is a major power off the world and most if not all of its actions are great things. Such as FDR bringing the U.S. out of the Depression, helping win World War 1 and World War 2, and disarming countries of some of their nuclear weapons making the world safer. While the overall view of Zinn is The United States is not all that it’s cracked up to be so to speak, the U.S. has done some very bad things in its past and some of the good things did not turn out to be as good as expected. Such as the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and how it responded to Labor Unions and strikers. This demonstrates that many people 's accounts of history are very different and you have to figure out what is the real truth, not just believe what some people say, because people have very different opinions from one another and just plain and simple we are all different, nobody has the same ideas and opinions someone else