Historian Howard Zinn doesn’t like Walter Kirn’s NYTimes review of his book, A Young People’s History of the United States. He even accuses Kirn of believing in objective truth, which, he claims, even “bright 12 year-olds” realize is nonsense.

The reviewer seems to hold to the 19th-century von Ranke idea that there is one truth to be told. Most historians, and most intelligent people, including bright 12-year-olds, understand that there is no such thing as a single “objective” truth, but that there are different truths according to the viewpoint of the historian.

The absurdity of Zinn’s relativism quickly reveals itself in the next paragraph.

Kirn is irritated because his “truth” is not mine. His truths — built around veneration of the “great men” of the past: the political leaders, the enterprising industrialists — add up to exactly the simplistic history fed to young people over the generations, which my book tries to replace. His kind of history produces a submissive population, always looking for saviors on high.

I’ve addressed this issue before, in more depth. If indeed there is no “one truth to be told,” but rather, “different truths according to the viewpoint of the historian,” it wouldn’t make sense to criticize Kirn’s view of history or to argue that one view is superior. But Zinn suggests that his approach demonstrates how American history “is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make [our highest ideals] a reality.” He mocks “the orthodox romanticization of Lincoln,” noting that “[historian Richard] Hofstadter brilliantly punctures what he calls the ‘Lincoln legend.’”

Zinn can’t have it both ways. If there’s no objective truth, then Zinn’s history is no better and no worse than any other. But then one has to wonder what the heck he’s writing about.