Jay Trott

In the shadow of the Revolution, love and loyalty collide. jaytrottbooks.com/love-revolutio…

@Pete__Simon Why is it fun?

Another fun fact: Robert Fagles was not a classicist. His Ph.D. is in English Literature (1959).

"As if eternal Harmony were conversing with itself, as might have happened in the bosom of God shortly before the creation of the world". Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, on J.S. Bach's music. #Bach #Goethe

@TLiterarian Gosh, suddenly I feel much better. I going to make a martini to toast the good sense of (apparently most of) America's history teachers.

It’s just like cuckoo radical rightists to worry about something that’s not happening. There around 4.3-4.5 million teachers in the US. Teachers teaching Zinn only hit 100k in 2019. In 2009 it was only 5000. Considering education is a long road, it’s really not reasonable to believe students will *only* study Zinn. I must have been given 5-6 different US history books throughout my education. So, Don’t worry my patriotic zealots, your fake nationalistic history story is by far still the dominant one.

@JoshPhillipsPhD What a world, what a world.

More fan mail 😘

@WilliamHogeland Well, there's Jimi, which apparenty impressed Dylan himself. There's Adele, which I rather like. And then there's this... youtu.be/OWSfxwNUkzw?si…

I've (almost) never heard a good Dylan cover.

@TLiterarian Farmers' movements and renters' strikes. Huh. It's a history of America born out of hatred for America. It doesn't bother me if leftists want to orgasm over it. I just don't think it should be rammed down the throats of America's children without a rational counterpoint.

A true believer? I’ve read many histories on the US, including Paul Johnson’s, which I also found valuable. But finally, a substantive criticism! Good one you. Only it’s an odd one, bc you claim Zinn set to do something he didn’t set out to do and that’s not reflected in his title, then chide him for it. It’s *not* a labor history. We go to Beard or Rocker for that. Zinn’s a *peoples* history, which is why, pre industrialization, he goes deeply into the Native American struggles, the farmers movements and renters strikes, which he spends a huge chapter on. If you don’t mind my saying, it sounds a lot like you haven’t read the book.

This book has fallen out of favor lately. Taibbi did an idiotic review of it a few years ago that made me gag. But, it’s a great book still, and everyone should read it. Don’t listen to the haters. They’d love for you to read nothing but Paul Johnson (actually, you should read both. The differences between the two are very instructive)

I don't attempt to have rational conversations with true believers. But I've read the book twice, had no idea he was a Jew, which wouldn't bother me much since both of my closest friends and the best man at my wedding are Jews, and of course he isn't a good historian. He's a polemicist. Let's start with the tendentious title "A People's History of the United States." It is in fact mostly a history of the labor movement and its ghastly capitalist antagonists. Since >90% of the American people lived on farms until the 20th century, how can a history of the labor movement be a "People's History of the United States"?

It would have to be an assumption on your part, since I didn’t offer a nonspecific criticism without backing it. The problem with airheaded rightwing derision of Zinn is that they usually haven’t read the book, they simply don’t like him either bc he is 1) a good historian or 2) a Jew

@TLiterarian If it makes you feel any better, I'll assume something very different about you.

@trottskyathome If there is time to quote Marvell there is time enough to identify a single falsehood in a book you disparage and pretend to speak so knowingly of. Until you do so I’ll assume you’re a fake and a hack.

I don't have world enough or time. But suffice it to say that it would begin on page 1 and end on the last page, with no pages missed in between. By the way, I went to B.U. when he was there. He had quite an unshowered following. Tried to recruit fellow Marxist Marcuse for the faculty. One-armed Silber shot him down,

@trottskyathome If you have a quarrel with the veracity of any of the content please give me a screenshot or page number, thanks

@nypost Whether the Republic can survive these pandering grifters is an open question.

Minneapolis mayor reflects on 6-year anniversary of George Floyd's death: 'We've changed' trib.al/izUC6F9

@7why__ydm Well, according to Don MacLean, it was this:

Can anyone pinpoint the exact moment when everything in society started getting noticeably worse?

Name an album so good you can listen to every single song without feeling the need to skip any track.

If you could watch any band in their prime, who would you pick?

@worillessg Well, to be honest, I have. The person's initials are "centimeter."

Be honest, have you ever blacklisted an author before? Like “I'll never read any book by this author again.” Won't judge

@KemalOnor I'd be happy to share the lake house I don't have with you.

I sometimes wonder if I am the worst writer ever, as I have written several novels, and am not living off of royalties. Yet for years, people have told me to "Just write my novel." I must be doing something wrong. I don't even own a lake house in the south of Italy.

@nickrmanes Things liven up when you get there.

The drive between Chicago and Detroit is really one of the most boring drives there is

@ohhanxiety Well, I guess it's a good way to get engagement.

People keep guessing, but no one gets it right. Do you know what this is

@KhananiShingan1 Silently.

How do you act in the spaces where people are smarter than you?

@Hot_Pepper76 My BIL happened to be a Green Beret and was in Vietnam when the song came out, so of course I remember it. I was 11.

Written by a wounded Green Beret recovering from Vietnam, this song went on to outsell almost everybody in 1966. In the middle of Beatlemania and the rising backlash against Vietnam, a pro military song somehow became the biggest selling single of the year. "The Ballad of the Green Berets" was co written by active duty U.S. Army Special Forces medic Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler after a punji stick injury ended his Vietnam tour and sent him back to Fort Bragg to recover. While recovering, Sadler focused on finishing the song with author Robin Moore, who wrote The Green Berets. Released in early 1966, the song shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for five weeks, outselling the biggest acts of the British Invasion era. At a time when protest music was growing louder, the song gave many Americans a rare positive portrayal of soldiers serving in Vietnam. It later helped inspire the 1968 film "The Green Berets" starring John Wayne. Were you around when this song was on the radio?