Customer Reviews

La Guardia in Congress.

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Howard Zinn comes off one of two ways, and usually both at the same time. He is either a bleeding heart liberal/socialist, or a professor who loves the pursuit of knowledge, and moreover, cherishes the gift of giving it to his students. Of the two I slant more to the latter. In his first jaunt, during his Georgian days, he tackled the days of La Guardia in Congress, by using primary sources close to La Guardia himself, and by giving the history. Unlike his contemporaries, or even those before the deconstructionist age, he is not a guerilla historian spin doctoring the La Guardia Era for the benefit of a political angle, nor to romaniticize a man as contrary to right, historically, as he was right. This coupled with the stellar People's History of the United States are welcomed additions to any historian/history buffs bookshelf.

Laguardia was a Republican, but he was more like Abraham Lincoln then todays Republicans such as Newt Gingrich and Dubya. Laguardia called himself a Progressive instead of a Conservative. Fiorello Laguardia is most famous for bing the Mayor of New York City during much of the 1930's and 40's but before that he was one of the leading progressives in Congress. During the "Roaring Twenties" he tried to expose the vast amount of poverty that existed in Americaeven before the depression. Laguardia supported civil liberties and redbaiting. He supported public power and labor. He opposed imperialism. He called for indepencence for the Philippines, self-government for Puerto Rico, and withdrawel of U.S. troops from Haiti. The policies Laguardia supported in in Congress were precursers of the New Deal and Laguardia can be considered one of the first New Dealers. A New Dealer even before FDR.