A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)

by Howard Zinn

book data

9,504 ratings, 4.30 average rating, 1,254 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		50%
4		34%
3		11%
2		2%
1		1%

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published

August 1st 2005 (first published 1980) by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

binding

Paperback, 768 pages

url

http://www.historyisaweapon.org/zinnapeo...

setting

The United States

literary awards

National Book Award runner-up

isbn

0060838655 (isbn13: 9780060838652)

description

Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of A People's History of the United States turns traditional te...more

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12/22/08

Jim rated it:

bookshelves: historical, non-fiction, reference

As a reference or an additional information source, this isn't terrible (4 stars). It really does hit a lot of high points & some that other histories have left out. The writing is good. While dry, it is readable & conveys a lot of information. My copy is an old one that only goes through the Vietnam war. He has updated versions to 2003, I believe.

It is NOT a balanced view of our history & is proposed reading for schools (minus 1 star). It shouldn't be unless read with other mater...more

Like this review? yes (12 people liked it)

38 comments

06/12/07

Megan rated it:

(review of isbn 0060926430)

bookshelves: history, non-fiction

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: all Americans

I finally finished this after slogging through it for two weeks, and it was definitely worth it. Besides being a good refresher in U.S. history, particularly from a non-nationalist perspective, I learned a lot about people's movements, and the ways that people (as opposed to 'the great men of history') have created change in our country.

It's good to know that some of what Zinn covers in A People's History, even though unorthodox at the time he wrote it, has already filtered into pub...more I finally finished this after slogging through it for two weeks, and it was definitely worth it. Besides being a good refresher in U.S. history, particularly from a non-nationalist perspective, I learned a lot about people's movements, and the ways that people (as opposed to 'the great men of history') have created change in our country.

It's good to know that some of what Zinn covers in A People's History, even though unorthodox at the time he wrote it, has already filtered into public education. For instance, it was very clearly taught in my high school U.S. history course that Columbus was not the genteel 'discoverer' of the Americas but rather the wealth-obsessed leader of a genocide against indigenous people in the Caribbean.
However, we didn't cover the fact that even as late as the 1960s and '70s the U.S. government was supporting violence against American Indians. Or that 'equal protection' under the 14th amendment was granted to corporations many decades before it was granted to women. (Literally, judges declared that corporations were considered 'persons' - just as they had finally said black men were persons and not just property - and then they later ruled that the term didn't apply to women.) And we certainly didn't cover the continuous use of military forces by both corporations and government against worker protests, events like the Ludlow Massacre (a strike by miners against the Rockefeller family's Colorado Fuel & Iron Corporation), where first the Rockefeller's own hired thugs, and then the government's attempts to bring in strikebreakers, did not break the determination of the workers, and eventually the National Guard launched machine gun fire on a tent colony of workers and their families. And while we maybe mentioned the death of civilians at Hiroshima, we didn't talk about the millions of civilians killed by U.S. troops in the Philippines, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and both directly/indirectly in numerous Central and South American countries.

The gist of Zinn's book (and this is a long gist, but it's a long book): the U.S. was founded to protect the interests of the wealthy, and continuous class conflict has been suppressed regularly through the creation of nationalist sentiment, as well as through the pitting of oppressed social groups one against the other (for instance, poor blacks against poor whites, or the lower class against the middle class). Furthermore, as we have accepted 'history' as it has been given to us in school textbooks, we've allowed ourselves both to believe the myth that 'the people' are actually represented by the government, and that we have democracy, while allowing a rich elite to maintain power and help create the continuous war economy we now live in, in which we continuously say we cannot afford to provide people with jobs, food, or education, but yet somehow shell out trillions to military contractors to create weapons we should never even be thinking about using.

Some of this I had already picked up here and there, but Zinn's book is a sort of a thick concentration of it all, a thorough look at who "we" as the United States really are. While certainly not a pretty self-portrait, it does end on a hopeful note: 'the people' have created change, and we can do it again.
The catch: change has always been achieved by direct action (violent and non-violent). It has never been achieved by voting.(less)

Like this review? yes (10 people liked it)

2 comments

08/11/07

Billy rated it:

(review of isbn 0060528370)

Read in January, 1999

recommends it for: Someone who hates America, success, and all thats right with the world

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK! EVER! BURN IT! HOWARD ZINN SHOULD BE DRAWN AND QUARTERED IN A PUBLIC FORUM!!!

Seriously though, when I describe my highschool sophomore year history class I generally use the following sentence, "The theme of sophomore year history was: White people - bad, the downtrodden - good." Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" was our textbook. I HATE THIS BOOK! His basic thesis is that America was built on the blood and suffering...more

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

11 comments

06/14/07

Peezy rated it:

I feel like no one should call themselves an American without having a basic grasp of the history of this country. You'd be amazed how many people don't even know even the most common gradeschool history of the U.S., much less the real history of it.

This book is an absolute must read for anybody who cares to know how this country was really founded. Columbus "discovering" America, independence from England, Civil War over slavery, and World War 2 because we got attacked b...more

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03/27/08

Emily rated it:

bookshelves: booksofthepast

recommends it for: America haters

People who don't approve of Zinn's equal opportunity perspective of history love to call him an America hater. I'm sure that George W. Bush would say that he's an enemy of freedom. But the thing that I love so much about Zinn and this book is his consistent ability to portray the United States (as defined by its history) as so much more than a static, monolitichly motivated country. Traditional approaches to history tell a student that our country was founded by white Christian men with lots ...more

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09/29/07

John rated it:

Read in March, 2005

History as it's told in our high school history textbooks is history that focuses on American leaders, whether political, military, or business. Zinn argues convincingly that we need also to see history as it happened to "the people," and that this perspective is by no means synonymous with that of America's elites. In fact, the official line in America's history and politics has been that America is basically one big middle class. Certainly, America long had a larger middle class than...more History as it's told in our high school history textbooks is history that focuses on American leaders, whether political, military, or business. Zinn argues convincingly that we need also to see history as it happened to "the people," and that this perspective is by no means synonymous with that of America's elites. In fact, the official line in America's history and politics has been that America is basically one big middle class. Certainly, America long had a larger middle class than most of the rest of the world, but as Zinn points out, we are "a middle class society governed for the most part by its upper classes." And what we see time after time (as in the present day) is that those who govern us have worked consistently for their own class first and for the country-as-a-whole second.

Zinn takes a hard look at the slaughter of the native Americans, at the exploitation of blacks and poor whites, at the alliance between government and business interests, at the struggles for the abolition of slavery, for labor rights, for civil rights, for women's rights... and over and over we see politicians taking action, passing and enforcing legislation only when popular movements force them to do so. Not simply when the electorate that voted them into office wants it, but when the people demand it in ways that cannot be easily ignored (as the polls more or less can when both parties are so similar on many basic issues). Voting, in fact, can be seen as consitently as a device for making people feel empowered while changing little.

I'll let Zinn speak for himself a bit.

“My viewpoint, in telling the story of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, most often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.”

Zinn puts himself consistently on the side of "the people," inasmuch as there can be said to be such a group--certainly it's not a unified group, and Zinn recognizes this. Still, Zinn would argue, the diversity represented by "the people" have more in common with one another (as much as they have been prevented from seeing it) than they do with the elites who run the country.

Fair warning: it's a long read, and pretty dense. Definitely not what we used to call "drunk-on-the-beach reading." In fact, if you want to read a book that shares some insights with this book without the exhaustive focus, you might start with James Loewen's _Lies My Teacher Told Me_. Really, these are two books that should be read by anyone who wants to understand our country and its history. If it's true that "those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it," then I think a necessary corollary is that "those who don't know the truth about history are doomed to repeat it."(less)

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

1 comment

09/26/07

Rachel rated it:

bookshelves: history

Read in October, 2007

This book taught me more about U.S. history than any class I ever took. I was never interested in history in school. Maybe I was just a budding socialist predisposed to reject the presidents-and-wars perspective. Maybe it was just boring.

Zinn's history is more accurate to what was actually going on than the textbooks are, and much more interesting. Viewing U.S. history as a struggle to gain and keep power on the part of the very rich, I began to see parallels with our own time, ...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

2 comments

08/05/07

Leon764 added it

recommends it for: Read cautiously

I don't know why teachers would make kids read a book about America written by someone with so little clarity. In the World According to Zinn, Americans (especially THE RICH <tm>) are responsible for all the bad things that have happened in the last 2 centuries.If you believe as he does that America has been a net bad for the world, then by all means read this book. Hell, memorize it. If you believe that America has been a net good in the world, then read it so you can understand the damag...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

13 comments

09/23/08

Jeffrey rated it:

bookshelves: history-historical

Actually, if you're even somewhat familiar with American History (and I'm not talking about what you learned in your politically correct high school readers), there's nothing new here. So why are so many upset by Zinn? Most say they are bothered by Zinn's subjectivity (but who cares? after all, it's his book) and what some say is his "whining" tone.

What frequently happens is that people respond emotionally and within that emotion analyze incorrectly, therefore, missing th...more

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01/20/08

Andrew rated it:

A well written, but severely flawed historical work.
It reads more like sociology than history, with Zinn's concern for social groups and people's movements. Now, at a certain point, those areas with overlap, but for the most part he seems less concerned with getting to a historical truth than preaching a message. At that point, one has to wonder how he deals with contradictory evidence and conflicting opinions. Does he grapple with them and try to sift through all the available evidenc...more

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07/11/07

Meghan Davison rated it:

Read in July, 2007

I like the book, because, well, I know that I should like it. After all, if it’s good enough to get a shout out from Good Will Hunting, it should be good enough for me. And of course, I find Zinn’s project of telling an alternative history admirable and important. But here’s the thing: I don’t really like the book. I kind of felt like Zinn essentializes all of the subaltern figures of history as mostly good, righteous people (for example, the poor racist southern farmer isn’t that ...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

2 comments

10/09/07

Brian rated it:

Why write a history of the United States when you know it is one-sided and basically propaganda? I understand his stated reasons for writing the book but I think the truth is better than "this is propaganda to fight mainstream history that I think is propaganda." Any one-sided historical accounts are not worth people's time and knowingly writing one is a waste of time. The truth remains obscured.

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

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07/10/08

David rated it:

This is nothing less than the definitive history of the plight of the people of the United States of America. It speaks truth to power, sticks it to the man, not like that judgmental piece of skulduggery by Paul Johnson, that rogue!

Popular interest in the book, no doubt, is fueled by a desire for an alternative view of history which speaks truth to power. But this book, strange to say, has itself become an orthodox view - it has passed into "conventional wisdom" to ...more This is nothing less than the definitive history of the plight of the people of the United States of America. It speaks truth to power, sticks it to the man, not like that judgmental piece of skulduggery by Paul Johnson, that rogue!

Popular interest in the book, no doubt, is fueled by a desire for an alternative view of history which speaks truth to power. But this book, strange to say, has itself become an orthodox view - it has passed into "conventional wisdom" to use John Kenneth Galbraith's term - of American intellectual life. The new conventional wisdom, which understands itself as alternative and antiestablishment, holds, it seems with far more passion than argument or reason, that history is unjustly told by the victors and ruling class, and that history therefore must be rewritten to accomodate the underdog. Zinn believes this with 'passionate intensity', and, in the spirit of dissent and civil disobedience, reverses the 'victor' principle: he rewrites American history from the dispossessed People's point of view, i.e. from the view of the downtrodden and victims of racism and political oppression.

Nothing says that this 'reversal' is any more just or true than the (presupposed) opposite point of view.

If it is true "People's History" is being taught in American high schools, I think this is a big mistake. What it risks teaching is this: passionate adherence to a certain ideology is more desirable than the employment of sound judgment, prudence, reason. Here is the most important point: this particular "alternative" view, if accepted the way Howard Zinn seems to want it, and if taken to heart, will not tolerate any other evaluation of history besides itself; because any other evaluation, according to the merciless logic of this way of thinking, is necessarily sympathetic with the oppressors. The reason for this intolerance, I think, is that this view has fundamentally eviscerated the use of reason for the sake of political action, that is, it has abdicated the need to evaluate the truth of its own judgments because, as the slogan goes, it is time to Act Now! and judge later. (The Red-Neck version of this is 'Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out.')

The problems of racial and social injustice are far too serious for such unwise and oversimplied thinking.

(less)

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03/03/08

Nick rated it:

bookshelves: favorites

Read in October, 2002

An extremely readable, powerful, and provocative book. The Peoples History of the United States is a must have companion text for anyone studying American history.

The commonly taught historical perspective comes from the top of the pyramid: the government and the economic and social elite. Zinn's work refocuses that perspective to those at the middle and bottom of the pyramid: the working class and the disenfranchised lower classes. This previously unexplored vantage point allows...more

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12/11/07

Steven rated it:

bookshelves: to-read

Read in January, 2002

sometime in that heady, idealistic autumn of 2002 eric schleder and i were cubicle mates at, gee i think it was still pharmacia, yes, it was still pharmacia. we decided to read people's history in sort of a two person book club. i think we agreed to tackle 3 chapters a week. that was reasonable being that eric had a toddler and another child on the way and i am just lazy.

i stalled out after the chapter about Andrew Jackson, the man adorning our US currency 20 dollar bill. I was s...more

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05/24/07

sydney rated it:

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: historians, teachers, curious americans

Holy pignolia, this took me a long time to read.

But it was worth it. Zinn takes you from Columbus's arrival in North America all the way up to the crazy (read: corrupt) 2000 presidential election, highlighting the stories that don't normally get told in history textbooks or mainstream media. It's a "people's history," so he tells Vietnam from the POV of the protesters, industrialism from the workers, slavery from the slaves, etc. I learned a lot of new (and disturbing)...more

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05/21/07

Jasmine rated it:

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: Everyone

I finally got through this beast, and it only took me about 3 months to do it (and a severely beaten up copy to prove it)! I completely agree with Eric Foner's quote on the back of my edition that says this book should be required reading. Getting through A People's History cover to cover in one fell swoop (although I will admit I took two mini breaks) is no easy task as the book is dense with information, but it's quite possibly the most important and transformative information you'll ever read...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

4 comments

06/27/07

Meagan O'Shea rated it:

recommends it for: neocons, embarassed Americans and uneducated valley girls

I've had to read this book twice now. well, excerpts from it. perhaps one day I'll read its entire contents but from the chapters that I have read I have arrived at the following conclusions:

1) I despise Christopher Columbus and the idiot Americans who parade him around, honoring his memory as if he sat down with our indigenous peoples and had corn bread and tea. Oh yeah, he was a swell guy, he saw that they perhaps would be cold so he gave them some blankets...infested with small po...more

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04/03/07

Rob rated it:

bookshelves: 2007, general-history

Read in May, 2007

recommends it for: Anyone interested in what US schools don't teach in American history

A fascinating and sobering introduction to Amerian history from the viewpoint of those with no political power: common laborers, slaves and sharecroppers, Native Americans, women. Zinn presents a scathing indictment of unfettered capitalism as the source of America's social and economic difficulties of yesterday and today. At times, Zinn relies too heavily on anecdotal evidence—as a a statistician, I was most impressed by his reports of large trends, such as the huge number of striking work...more

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07/19/07

Cedar rated it:

(review of isbn 0060528370)

bookshelves: socialistpropaganda

Read in July, 2007

One of the most poorly written pieces of propaganda I've ever had the misfortune to read. I'll give it this: it filled in a few blindspots in my knowledge of history. There were several major events that I could swear I never learned about in history classes. (Perhaps because my high school history teacher was also the football coach and gave extra credit on exams for guessing the point spread of the upcoming game, but that's another story.) Other than that, reading this book was like pullin...more

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quotes from this book

"Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such as world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners." More quotes...