Publication Date:August 1, 2005 Availability:Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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ISBN13: 9780060838652
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Amazon.com Review Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of A People's History of the United States turns traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher Columbus's arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.
Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher, historian, and social activist for more than 20 years--explains, "My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)--that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."
If your last experience of American history was brought to you by junior high school textbooks--or even if you're a specialist--get ready for the other side of stories you may not even have heard. With its vivid descriptions of rarely noted events, A People's History of the United States is required reading for anyone who wants to take a fresh look at the rich, rocky history of America.
Product Description Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of -- and in the words of -- America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.
Excellent historySeptember 5, 2010 Harry J. Coffey(Marietta, OH) It is refreshing to read a work that is free of partisan bias - honesty in its treatment of native Americans. There is no whitewash in its treatment of the Vietnam debacle. I higholy recommend it.
A People's History of the United States, 1492 to PresentSeptember 1, 2010 Josh Schulman 1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Howard Zinn captures the history of America that is left out of classrooms. A People's History of the United States could be used as a textbook or a "start to finish", either way it is very informative and entertaining.
RamblingsAugust 29, 2010 liberty man(Balltown,ME.) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Howard Zinn writes from a left liberal view. He comes from a fading generation of workers, educated after WW2 via the GI bill.He is also the son of immigrants. His writing is not the best,nor is it impeccably researched. US history has a dark side. Benefits always come with some hidden costs. Do the good points outweigh the bad? That is a judgment for the individual to make. I think this book does make one question some of the common mantras about our country. I guess communism as an alternative to capitalism has been disproved. Global capitalism ,as we know, will have some tremendous costs to our nation. Will the average American benefit in the long run? Judging by the unemployment rate and dicky finances of today,I doubt it.
Should join the Gideon Bible in the other hotel room drawerAugust 29, 2010 aj medina 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Howard Zinn lays it on the line, and tells us the history that our teachers did not (would not, or could not) teach us. Its a long read, but its not meant to be entertaining. This is NOT WRITTEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE WINNERS, so be prepared. What else can I say? Buy it and keep it on your shelf.
Caveat EmptorAugust 27, 2010 Nippun(California, USA) 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Peopls's History of the United States is an excellent narration of the marginal movements and peoples in the formation of the United States. If we hold that history is written (and distorted) by the winners, then the formal historical narrative of this country, starting with Columbus's discovery, the Indian wars, Manifest Destiny, Slavery, Civil War, Civil rights, and so on, requires a reading that is less involved with how these events have been traditionally presented, and more with how they were shaped and perceived by ordinary people people at the time. It is this comprehensive revision that Zinn attempts. Zinn ignores the traditional narrative of the building of America as a social experiment founded on Lockean ideas, a just and moral nation, which held the rights of man as an absolute, and which self corrected the various existential flaws with a long internal struggle, the height of which was the Civil war, ostensibly fought to end slavery. He attacks this mainstream view with a blinding zeal, focusing on the iniquities of the slave trade, the hypocrisy and deception of Manifest destiny and what it meant for the existing Mexican and Indian nations, the hypocrisy of the American political system and how the rich have always managed to usurp it for their benefits, the empty victory of Lincoln's war and how Jim Crow laws were the reality instead of the promises of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th amendment, the poverty in the cities and the cornering of the resources by the rich, abject sub-human working conditions, the struggles of the suffragette movements, the countless worker/trade union/socialist movements who fought for the ordinary worker at the turn of the last century, the shaping of political thought leading to the building of the American Empire and the popular revolt against the establishment in the 60s.
This work becomes a required reading not only because of the different paradigm it uses to approach the history of an essentially revolutionary nation - chronicling incidents from the lives of ordinary people, focusing on small revolts, strikes, personal letters and memoirs, than on national leaders and their wars and treaties, but also because it fulfills a real gap that exists in the self awareness of this country. It is easy enough to be blinded by glory of the Declaration of Independence, the constitution and the myth of the American dream, and forget that the reality of this republic is not a passive system of just rights and laws, but a continuous dialectic, often with violent participation by the politically and economically oppressed. Racial and ethnic assimilation, rights for all men, and women, safety regulations at workplaces, are all privileges that were won by hard struggles, often violent revolts and strikes. The system, influenced by the strong special interests, did everything to oppose these movements, and it is in painting a realistic picture of this tussle that Zinn shines.
One can't be neutral on a moving train, Zinn is reputed to have said. And it's important to keep this in mind while reading this text. Zinn has an obvious and unabashed left of center ideological slant, and one is left with a work that shouldn't be read in isolation, but as a counterweight to the eulogies of flag and freedom that abound not only on the right, but in a simpler form, comprise the bulwark of American nationalism. Zinn's complaints are mostly moral, and they express a yearning for a Political idealism that has never existed. To the extent that this is interpreted as the progressive's dissatisfaction with the amoral realpolitik, it's understandable. But Zinn seems to hit at the fundamentals of a participatory system itself. He consistently accuses the democratic system of sapping the exuberant energy of mass movements, by chaneling it into the party system, though this can be seen as an act of incorporating the movement's goals, with a compromise, and making them mainstream. Anyone who has lived through major legislative changes, like the recent passage of universal Health care, is privy to the pangs of democracy, and how inducing changes in such a setup is no easy task, especially when the changes are ambitious and people's fears are easily exploitable. Zinn does not spend much time on such fundamentals, and how this might reflect a beautifully crafted system, that checks itself from leaning towards a tyranny of the right or the left. Zinn appears to be a leaning towards a dictatorship of the people, boldly implementing his progressive morality. This is probably the weakest point of Zinn's political expression, and his critique of the Americal electoral system.
