A graphic combination of incidents from Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" (see my review), and his autobiography (which I have not read), this "People's History", as the title suggests, emphasizes the interfering role of the United States in world events, and how the people of those nations and our own have tried to fight back. It also, like Zinn's longer written history, talks about the struggle of labor, Native Americans, and slaves and their descendents.

The result is a kind of broadside, heavy-handed in a very effective fashion. It will trouble your mind.

War and its victims shadow everything. "...U.S. leaders learned that trouble and social unrest at home can be cured by the prescription of foreign war. Americans will unify against a foreign enemy." And if this enemy does not obviously present itself, it can be easily invented. And has been, again and again and again. It's easy to be discouraged by the lessons of this history. How can we fight such strong, well-financed and constructed and publicly protected lies? Where do we find the courage to ask questions and say no?

Again, as in the longer "People's History", Zinn points out that ordinary people can and have made a difference. And so he ends on a surprisingly optimistic note.

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness....to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of the worst of everything around us, is a marvelous victory."