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A People's History of the United States

by Howard Zinn

4.07 · Rating details · 142,537 Ratings · 4,323 Reviews

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.

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Paperback, 729 pages

Published August 2nd 2005 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics (first published 1980)

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Community Reviews

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Nov 10, 2009 Mike (the Paladin) rated it did not like it

Shelves: didn-t-finish, political

Update: I took this out of the library to attempt a reread...no changes, wanted to be fair. Still don't care for it. As noted, no changes.

Oh my goodness aren't we brave to tell (re-tell) American history this way? "You've been lied to and only I have the strength of character to tell you about it"

Yeah, yeah, yeah I've heard it all before. In C.S. Lewis' Great Divorce there's a high churchman of the Church of England who's going on about how brave he was to take a secular stand and renouncing "t ...more

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Sep 01, 2016 Michael Finocchiaro rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, anarchism, history, american-20th-c

This is one of the most eye-opening books I have ever read. The late Howard Zinn takes off the filters with which American history is taught in schools and takes an unflinching look at how the US has not been the benevolent protector of democracy that propaganda would like us to believe. Not that the founding principles were wrong - they were ideal then and with some modifications re slavery and women's rights are still relevant today - but American domestic and foreign policy has been held host ...more

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May 03, 2013 J.G. Keely rated it did not like it

Shelves: non-fiction, abandoned, reviewed, history

Howard Zinn saw a problem in the world, a great bias in our understanding of history, a history written by the winners--by tyrants and industrial magnates and warmongers--and so he did something about it: he created an equally flawed and opposed bias, just as carefully constructed to prop up his own one-sided conclusion, in an act which always calls to my mind Bob Dylan's line:

"In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand. At the mongrel dogs who teach. Fearing not that I'd become my enemy. In the in
...more

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Aug 11, 2007 Billy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

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 of the poor. And while this is def ...more

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Jun 12, 2007 Megan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: all Americans

Shelves: non-fiction, history, favorites

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 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. ...more

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May 28, 2015 Warwick rated it really liked it

Shelves: united-states, history, politics

In 1846, in Concord, Massachusetts, the writer Henry David Thoreau ran into a tax collector called Sam Staples, who asked for his poll tax. Thoreau declined to pay, refusing – he said – to contribute to what he regarded as the government's illegal war against Mexico. He was put in prison.

When Emerson visited Thoreau in jail and asked, ‘What are you doing in there?’ it was reported that Thoreau replied, ‘What are you doing out there?’

Howard Zinn is not in jail (he's dead), but the message to read ...more

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Sep 23, 2008 Jeffrey rated it liked it

Shelves: 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, even though in recent years more of the 'bad stuff' is leaking out to our high school students), 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. Hey, this will help you build your critical thinking 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, even though in recent years more of the 'bad stuff' is leaking out to our high school students), 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. Hey, this will help you build your critical thinking skills and delaing with the reality of bias (never, ever read just one book on complex issues to get it all, or at least most of the true picture) And if he does focus excessively on the rich as creators and cause of all negatives historically, well, he's not too far off (for more, read The End of Money and The Future of Civilization by Thomas H. Greco). But there certainly are positives within most existing negatives (for more read A Patriots History of the United States).

But back to all the people whining about Zinn's whining (yeah, I know, funny, huh? ;o)What frequently happens is that people respond emotionally and within that emotion analyze incorrectly, therefore, missing the mark and attacking the author (not always, but often). What is most likely affecting most people is an initial exposure to long-covered truths, something Zinn has nothing to do with. And if you love your country and you're getting pummeled by constant negatives about that country, well . . . from that emotional state you shoot missing the mark.

But there's nothing new here, and you don't have to take my word. If you're looking for different perspectives on the same material, try this short list:

Revisiting America: Readings in Race, Culture, and Conflict; Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong; and to add to the fire, Noam Chomsky's Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (yes, the one Hugo Chavez shot to the top of the bestsellers list); Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy; What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World; ad infinitum. Basically anything Chomsky.

As for the conservative reading list, there's . . . ahhhh . . . wait a tic? I don't see anything beyond the one book mentioned above. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Let me get on the phone to McCain. I'll be right back.

...more

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Dec 28, 2010 Michael rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1980s, history

The ratings on this book tend to be polarized here on Goodreads, with lots of people giving it 5 or 4 stars, and quite a few giving it 1. This is because this book is upfront about where it stands politically: Howard Zinn runs with the notion that poor people tend to be exploited by rich ones. (GASP!) If you agree with this general human tendency, yet STILL believe we should teach the NERFed version of American History--where Columbus is a swell fella, the Native Americans were using the land wr ...more

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Mar 12, 2017 Julie rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, e-book, history, overdrive, politics, 2017

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn is a 2005 Harper Perennial Modern Classics publication.

I admit, up front, that this my first go at this book. I vaguely remember some controversy surrounding a history book that exposed the darker side of American History, and whether or not it belonged next to traditional history text in schools. However, this book came along after I graduated from high school, having been published in 1980, to the best of my knowledge, and my own children A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn is a 2005 Harper Perennial Modern Classics publication.

I admit, up front, that this my first go at this book. I vaguely remember some controversy surrounding a history book that exposed the darker side of American History, and whether or not it belonged next to traditional history text in schools. However, this book came along after I graduated from high school, having been published in 1980, to the best of my knowledge, and my own children used traditional history textbooks in school.

It wasn’t until I heard the state of Arkansas was trying to have this book banned from its schools, that it piqued my interest. So, I checked it out of the library just to see what was so controversial about it.

It’s been a very long time since I picked up a history textbook of any kind. So, if nothing else, this book gave me a little refresher course on historical events. But, of course, I do see why some people would find learning about the underbelly of American history disconcerting.

The history covered begins in 1492 and was updated up to 2000’s war on Terrorism.

I’d never heard about most of these ‘untold’ portions of history, but as long as they are true, I don’t see the problem with informing students of the darker aspects of their history. The important thing to note, however, is the motive behinds some of these events and one's own perception of them.

If I began looking through this book with any kind of preset ideas, it would be in favor of telling the whole truth, not just the truth that paints our ancestors in the most flattering light possible. Still, I did pick up on a ‘tone’ here and there I wasn’t so sure should exist in a book designed as a teaching tool.
Of course, one could argue, those same ‘tones’ show up in more traditional history textbooks, too, and keep in mind that my ability to access 'tones' can be wonky sometimes, apparently.

Because I checked this book out of the library, and needed to get it turned back in, I didn’t read the book like I would a novel or any other kind of book. I skipped around here and there, skimmed some areas, and spent a great deal of time on topics that interested me the most.

The point, the author seemed intent on stressing, was that the rich took power and gained much off the backs of the poor or ‘downtrodden’. I think you would have to be truly dense not to pick up on that, but again, if it’s true, then by all means, at least allow the book in the classroom as a companion to the more traditional studies.

One thing I believe is clearly under attack in our present climate, is critical thinking. To disallow this book in the classroom because it shows another side of the story, is unhealthy. Students must learn to look at the information and make informed decisions about the data presented to them. Not only that, I just don’t like the idea of banning books. If the schools feel that strongly about using the book in the classroom, then at least give them the chance to check it out of the school library.

This is not your typical ‘dry’ history text, and I do understand why some people either loved it or hated it. For me, I hate to be wishy washy, but I fall somewhere in the middle. I didn’t hate it, and while it was interesting, I didn’t feel overly impressed either.

3 stars
...more

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Dec 22, 2008 Jim rated it liked it

Shelves: 2non-fiction, 3reference, historical, 1paper

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 material 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 materials as it only tells part of the story. If you want to know anything about how minority groups were mistreated, you'll find it here. While accurate, the view is so unbalanced as to become nauseating after a while (minus another star). While most historians have an axe to grind, most do it more subtly than Zinn does.

To the best of my knowledge, he doesn't gossip nor present any incorrect facts, he does present his facts in such a way as to slam our government at every turn. He does bring up some points that many other histories have glossed over, though (add one star).

For instance, in the early history of the United States, he is very careful to point out every group not represented by the Constitution, yet makes no mention of the fact that these people were not represented before the Revolution either. It's good that he brings up the point, but not so great that he leaves the impression that they obviously should have been. It wasn't obvious to the people of that time that they should have been represented. Men of property made the decisions & always had. Women, slaves & men without property didn't get a say. That they eventually did says a lot for the foundation these men laid, which Zinn carefully avoids.

So overall it is a good thing to read, but only with another history to balance it at hand.

Update 4Jun2014: It's agenda is obvious enough that it was runner up as the least credible history book in print.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/a...

Update 25Aug2014: According to this, the first slave owner in the U.S. was a black tobacco farmer. In Chapter 2, Zinn states that while 'some historians think' that blacks were 'servants' (a usage that many southerners used during the Civil War) they were probably treated differently than white indentured servants. He never mentions the information in this article:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ef2_13...
which states that the first black slave owner was a black man who was an indentured servant, worked off his debt to become a freeman & tobacco farmer who then wound up 'owning' his own indentured, black servant. The article goes on to further say there were thousands of black slave owners in the south, something I've never read about elsewhere. Interesting. People can just suck without reference to sex, color, or creed...
:( ...more

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Aug 05, 2007 Carlton 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 ) 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 damage it has d ...more

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Mar 27, 2008 Emily rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: America haters

Shelves: booksofthepast

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 of ...more

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Jan 20, 2008 Andrew rated it it was ok

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 evidence? Or does ...more

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Sep 29, 2007 John rated it it was amazing

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 t 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." ...more

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Jun 30, 2008 Brian rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorite-non-fiction

Nobody likes to look in the mirror and see a big zit. Zinn makes us do so and a lot of people don't like that (it's not polite to point out zits). America has seen itself as perfect for a long time and we are taught that all the way from grade school through college (and every day on Fox News). People say Zinn blames America for everything. Honestly the bull shit has been so steeped the other way for so long, it forced his hand to go over the top in pointing our our flaws. The truth is probably ...more

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Oct 09, 2007 Brian rated it did not like 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.

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Sep 29, 2009 P.J. Sullivan rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: history

History is about power, said Eugen Weber. This one is about the powerless majority, the humble members of society. The farmers, mechanics, laborers. The Native Americans dispossessed of their land. The slaves dispossessed of their liberty. The women and children, the rent payers, the downtrodden. This is the flip side of the elitist history you learned in school. It is not about kings or presidents, founding fathers or saviors or statesmen. It is "disrespectful of governments and respectful of p ...more

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Jul 25, 2007 Ryan A rated it did not like it

"Zinn will blow your hair back." Thanks Matt Damon. This book was long, drawn out and boring. Do I really care to learn about every single union leader and strike in America? No, but most U.S. History Teachers think you do. Do yourself a favor, pick an interesting sentence in the introduction and write a paper about that. Save yourself a lot of trouble.

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Feb 17, 2011 Jake rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

You can't review Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" without first declaring your own political bias, so here's a brief summary of mine:

I grew up in a Communist-sympathizing household in Park Slope, that most liberal of all left-leaning Brooklyn neighborhoods. My father had a clear, if sometimes simplistic world-view: the rich were evil, and whatever side of an issue they were on, good people should be on the other side. Like most children, I rebelled, and by college, my poli You can't review Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States" without first declaring your own political bias, so here's a brief summary of mine:

I grew up in a Communist-sympathizing household in Park Slope, that most liberal of all left-leaning Brooklyn neighborhoods. My father had a clear, if sometimes simplistic world-view: the rich were evil, and whatever side of an issue they were on, good people should be on the other side. Like most children, I rebelled, and by college, my politics could best be described as left-leaning centrism in the Clintonian sense. To my dad, this was about as bad as being a fascist or a Republican, and for years I avoided talking with him about politics.

After 9/11, like most Americans, I reflexively drifted further to the right on foreign policy- mostly out of shock and a desire for revenge. While my parents were down in DC protesting the second Gulf War, I secretly felt a certain satisfaction at watching a tyrant like Saddam Hussein get taken down. Over the next ten years, however, I found myself drifting back towards the center- the 9/11 bloodlust wore off and I was left with doubts about the wars. At the same time, I was beginning to notice some dispiriting trends in our domestic situation- especially the constant cycle of boom and bust, the seemingly bottomless materialism of our popular culture, and the growing shrillness of the political debates.

And then 2008 came along, when the banks blew up America. Few of my friends had benefited from the housing bubble (most were too young or too poor to buy property)- so most of us felt doubly fucked: first, by the run up in housing prices, which put even the limited prosperity of our parents generation out of reach, and second, by the bust, which put a lot of us out of work. Watching the government turn around and bail out the banks with our tax money only added insult to injury. And that's around the time I realized that my dad had been right all along: the rich really did control our country, through the banks and the government, and they really were evil- possessed of a monstrous selfishness that cared only for themselves, and nothing about the rest of us.

So, you could say that when I picked up Zinn's book seven weeks ago, I was primed to be receptive to his message. And that message is simple: the rich have screwed the poor in America since the first day the Europeans arrived. In fact, since before they arrived, as illustrated by my favorite anecdote in the book:

Then, on October 12, a sailor called Rodrigo saw the early morning moon shining on white sands, and cried out. It was an island in the Bahamas, the Caribbean sea. The first man to sight land was supposed to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward.

And that screwing continued- first, the Native Americans on Hispanola were wiped out (in a genocide that largely goes unmentioned, even in books like Charles Mann's 1491.) Then the Native Americans on the mainland were destroyed. Then the Blacks were kidnapped from Africa, and brutally oppressed for hundreds of years in our fields. So were the poor whites, and the minorities, who were often treated as bad as the slaves. Women, of course, were oppressed the whole time, even in the richest houses. And Zinn observes that even as the general level of prosperity in the country increased, the gains were mostly hoarded by rich white men. This quote is from Henry George, a newspaperman in 1879- but reading Zinn, you come to feel like it could have been written at any time in the last 400 years:

It is true that wealth has been greatly increased, and that the average of comfort, leisure and refinement has been raised, but these gains are not general. In them the lowest class do not share... This association of poverty with progress is the great enigma of our times... there is a vague but general feeling of disappointment, an increased bitterness among the working classes, a widespread feeling of unrest and brooding revolution.

Zinn also makes a convincing case that the method by which the rich kept these gains was straightforward: whenever they were threatened by potential uprisings of people's movements, they simply turned one group against another. For instance, the poor whites against the slaves, or the poor farmers against the Indians, or the poor working men against the newly arrived immigrants, or, when the heat really got too strong, the entire country against another country- as in the Spanish-American War in the late 19th Century.

All this is not to say that I was in total agreement with Zinn. Like many of his readers, I had two different kinds of objections. The first were ones of scope- I found it puzzling that he omitted some struggles (like those of Asians or Hispanics on the West Coast, or the Gays, or the handicapped), while focusing so much energy on others (for instance, the struggles of the radical unionists like the Wobblies.) I was also confused by how little there was on violent leftist radicalism in the 60s and 70s- he hardly mentions The Weathermen, the SLA, the Chicago Seven, etc. Given how many pages he spends on his generally excellent chapters on the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam struggle, these omissions seemed weird- was he consciously trying to soften the image of the left? Likewise, Zinn's discussion of events since 1980 (added in later versions of the book), seem a little breezy- much lighter on quotes and detail than the foregoing chapters.

My second class of objections were about bias. Now, Zinn does a good job of defusing these- for instance, in his afterward, he writes:

This is a biased account... I am not troubled by that, because the mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction- so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen, and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements..."

But even so, I still found some of his positions a little simplistic. While he does a good job of humanizing the poor and the downtrodden through hundreds of quotes, he never brings the same level of detail to his discussions about the rich. My personal feeling is that the rich aren't a monolithic group (though they often behave in a more unified way than the poor)- they are still a collection of disparate individuals, families, and corporations with their own motives and interests. So when Zinn says that the rich used the pretext of nationalism to advance their own interests in World War One, I ask myself, which rich people? Was it a conscious decision by a single rich person, like the President, or a group of people, like the heads of the big corporations? Or was it a less-than-conscious choice- more an instance of lots of people in power taking advantage of opportunity to seize more power and wealth? Zinn never tells us- and he rarely uses quotes to erase this ambiguity.

Additionally, sometimes he's just a little far-out- so aggressively pacifistic or leftist that he makes stupid claims. For instance, even my dad objected to his discussion of World War 2. Here's a small taste:

What seemed clear at the time was that the United States was a democracy with certain liberties, while Germany was a dictatorship persecuting its Jewish minority, imprisoning dissidents, whatever their religion, while proclaiming the supremacy of the Nordic "race." However, blacks, looking at anti-Semitism in Germany, might not see their own situation in the U.S. as much different.

I mean, really- the way America treated the blacks was awful- but there is a world of difference between the apartheid of 1940s America and the genocide of 1940s Germany.

Those objections aside, overall Zinn accomplishes his goal of presenting the other side of American history, and convincing the reader that American government has largely been used by the rich to concentrate their wealth and power at the expense of the poor. Unfortunately, in his final chapters, Zinn doesn't offer much prescriptive advice on how to turn America in a more liberal direction of less income disparity, less war, and more civil rights. He clearly describes what his ideal America looks like- a kind of locavore anarchism, where we all live in small communities and make joint decisions through committees. But he doesn't explain how to get there, or how we could avoid the pitfalls that destroyed all the Communist countries in the past- corruption, oppression, colossal waste of resources.

The closest Zinn comes to realistic advice is reminding us that liberal social change never comes without people rising up in the streets- getting out there, protesting, and generally making noise until the rich and powerful are forced to change course. During just the last couple of months when I was reading this book, we've all seen the power of direct people's movements. Unfortunately, we only saw them in the Middle East- not in America, where more than ever, we need a more just and equitable society. The question that I'm left with is that after witnessing the plutocratic orgy of the last few years, why aren't we all out there, waving banners and demanding change?
...more

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Feb 18, 2017 Mischenko rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read this for my American History course in college. Really enjoyed it!

4****

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Jul 19, 2007 Cedar rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: socialistpropaganda

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 pulling te ...more

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Dec 05, 2007 Sam Sanford rated it it was amazing

Do you think the U.S. government's domination by business interests and the wealthy is a relatively recent development? Think the founding fathers would be appalled by the current situation? Think Republicans are responsible for tax cuts for the rich? Think Democrats are the party of the working class? Think JFK was a pretty good guy? Think U.S. involvementin WWII was morally motivated?
If you want to find out why you're wrong about all these things, if you want clear evidence that our government ...more

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Aug 10, 2014 Alex rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2014, rth-lifetime

A People's History's 750 pages can be boiled down to two statements:

1) America sucks;
2) The only way to change it is to organize.

Both of these things are true, and Zinn makes his case with comprehensive thunder. The extermination of Native Americans; the genocide of slavery; the systematic fight against civil rights, socialist and labor movements; all the way up to the horrors of Vietnam, Zinn shows us how America's interests have always been big business at the expense of the people. "To give p A People's History's 750 pages can be boiled down to two statements:

1) America sucks;
2) The only way to change it is to organize.

Both of these things are true, and Zinn makes his case with comprehensive thunder. The extermination of Native Americans; the genocide of slavery; the systematic fight against civil rights, socialist and labor movements; all the way up to the horrors of Vietnam, Zinn shows us how America's interests have always been big business at the expense of the people. "To give people a choice between two different parties and allow them, in a period of rebellion, to choose the slightly more democratic one was an ingenious mode of control," says Zinn, and you're like oh snap.

PS and ETA: hello, Bernie Sanders fans! This review has gotten more likes during Bernie's run than it did before, and you are correct that it amounts to the Sanders Bible. I realize that, following HRC's nomination, you are now faced with exactly the choice quoted above. Please do keep in mind that while it is indeed an ingenious and cynical mode of control, Zinn is not suggesting that you allow the much less democratic option to win in protest. This is known as "cutting off your nose to spite your face." Suck it up and vote for Hillary. Thank you.

Anyway. This is a valuable book: one of the best broadsides against the Establishment ever written. But it suffers from two big problems:

First, as he says right in the title, one of Zinn's goals is to tell a different kind of history - one not dominated by individual heroes and villains, but by groups of people - movements - who come together to change the direction of American society. That's nice, but we learn best when information is presented in the form of stories, and stories work best when they have protagonists; Zinn's refusal to give us protagonists makes it hard to keep straight what's going on. (Even when protagonists do show up, Zinn often fails to put them in context: Mother Jones pops into the story a few times with zero explanation of who the hell she is.) It unfortunately makes the book feel somewhat like the textbooks you used to know and loathe during high school - just long lists of events and numbers and happenings, that make your eyes glaze over. Only a masochist would count the number of times Zinn says, "[x] people marched at [somewhere] to protest [a thing], and the police beat the shit out of [many] of them." It's a lot. I was left with a chaotic sense that lots of people have been unhappy with lots of things, and generally gotten beat up for it. This is very well-written, for a history textbook...but that's not saying much.

(Zinn's disdain for the mechanics of storytelling is also manifested in his dreadful taste in books, by the way. When he cites literature, it tends to be stuff like Edward Bellamy's boring proto-scifi Looking Backward or Jack London's awful dystopia Iron Heel - well-intentioned but terrible socialist literature. Makes you think Zinn might be a pain in the ass to have over for dinner.)

Second, Zinn's consciously biased tone ends up making it easy to disagree with him. He makes his point so many times, so persistently, that even I found myself at times wanting to argue - and I'm firmly on his team. It's just...when a guy repeats himself a thousand times one's natural inclination is to be like "Shut up." That's just how it goes. Zinn freely admits that this is

a biased account, one that leans in a certain direction. I am not troubled by that, because the mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction - so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people's movements - that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission.

And Zinn's right: I remember dismissing my high school textbooks out of hand because they were so clearly biased that I felt immediately that they couldn't be trusted. The problem is that although Zinn is philosophically opposite, the effect is the same. Anyone who's not already inclined to agree with Zinn will find it all too easy to dismiss his entire book, which means that A People's History is doomed to do its preaching only to the converted. Top reviews of it on Goodreads tend to be five stars or one, divided by whether the reviewer already agreed with Zinn or not.

As the converted, this still had value for me. Zinn makes the very clear point that I am exactly the problem: the former activist who's settled comfortably into the middle class and therefore deactivated. I got mine, right? I'm actually mentioned in this book: Zinn describes a Boston protest against the first Gulf War that I was at. But it's been a long time since I took to the streets. So, okay, as an extra-credit assignment in Zinn's Shitty History 101, I promise to get back out there. As long as I don't have brunch plans. ...more

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Mar 18, 2010 Stephen rated it did not like it

Shelves: history-usa, ebooks, history, on-deck-next, 1980-1989, non-fiction, polly-sighs-and-pubic-policy

0.5 to 1.0 stars. The quintessential history book for American's who hate America. My biggest problem with this book is not its existence but that it is too often introduced to young people, not as an alternative viewpoint, but as a "primary" guide to American history. As someone who encourages free and open debate and believes America's greatest virtue is the ability of its people to criticize its leaders and speak freely about all issues, I think it is important to have books like this, inaccu ...more

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Jun 09, 2007 Ryan rated it it was amazing

I read this book for my AP United States History class required summer reading. I borrowed/recieved it from a friend who had a copy and had taken the class already. A hefty little read it appeared far to borish and complex--a weeks long read at least, and most likely I felt I'd end up trudging through the book word by word without an soul or passion for the text. Begrudgedly I opened up the book and began to run my eyes across the first few sentences. I was completely aghast at the bitter-tone, ...more

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Jun 03, 2010 Larry Bassett rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, history, audio

An essential book for your home library for mind expansion and reference. I have added a lot of notes to this book to guide you from chapter to chapter in case you have particular areas of interest that you do not want to miss. I have owned a copy of this book a long time and have never read it from Cover to cover. I finally got a copy of the audible version and that helped me get through the entire book. If you are having that same problem I cured you to go immediately to chapters 25 and 26. I ...more

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Sep 26, 2007 Rachel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

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, time-tested tric ...more

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Jan 24, 2008 Krista rated it it was amazing

This is a history book intended to tell the stories that don't get told. It isn't centered around typical heroes or presidents or nationalistic jingoism. It tries to tell the "people's history"

Yeah, it's biased. Zinn admits as much.

Yeah, it's negative. Zinn admits as much.

And, yeah, if it's the only history you read, you come away with one viewpoint and, perhaps, a bit of bile in your mouth. But it shouldn't be the only history you read. It should be the history that helps balance the prevalent This is a history book intended to tell the stories that don't get told. It isn't centered around typical heroes or presidents or nationalistic jingoism. It tries to tell the "people's history"

Yeah, it's biased. Zinn admits as much.

Yeah, it's negative. Zinn admits as much.

And, yeah, if it's the only history you read, you come away with one viewpoint and, perhaps, a bit of bile in your mouth. But it shouldn't be the only history you read. It should be the history that helps balance the prevalent "Go America!" tellings that dominate our schools and our bookshelves.

I don't agree with everything Zinn stands for but I am so glad to have his history; one that focuses on the lost stories, the stories that reveal our leaders as human, fallible and, in the end, unable to change the world for the better. The stories that we didn't hear the first time around and probably wouldn't have heard if it weren't for Zinn's history. The class conflict, racial injustice, sexual inequality and national arrogance that shaped our nation right alongside the victories, the ideals and the lofty accomplishments of our heroes. The stories that question Roosevelt, a hero of the social left, as stringently as they question Reagan, a hero of the conservative right.

It shouldn't be shocking to me that most of the stories highlight how greed runs rampant; economic inequality is the hidden menace that manifests shielded by more obvious issues of color and gender. If you look for a reason why the downtrodden were trodded down, you usually find greed. Business, wealth and profits.

To me, that's the bottom line; greed. Human greed spoils any idealistic social structure, whether it be communism, socialism, capitalism, democracy or even anarchy. Eventually someone gets greedy and starts to take advantage and then it all snowballs. The Greed Domino Effect, as it were. When I read Zinn's history, I read stories about how the people who were crushed by greed tried to fight back. And I remember that, in my own life, I should try to ignore the dictates of monetary success and greed and, instead, try to live a life that, at the very least, does no harm.

And while I realize that any teller of history has an agenda and, ergo, a grain of salt should always be handy, Zinn's history is one of the few that has daily reminded me to try to be a better person. And if I aim higher, maybe I can be a better person who helps other people learn to be better persons. And beyond that, maybe if enough of us try to be better people, we can help in largely significant ways; we can work together to help "America be America again - The land that never has been yet - And yet must be - the land where every man is free." (Langston Hughes)

And if that is this book's only redeeming quality, it's well worth the read.
...more

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May 24, 2007 sydney rated it it was amazing

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) aspects of American histo ...more

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Oct 24, 2008 Blake rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: Only someone who has a critical enough eye to see through Zinn's garbage

Shelves: books-i-read-in-school, fiction

This book is a farce. While I think some of chapters on early American history have value, the closer the book gets to your lifetime the more you scratch your head and ask WTF. Reading Mr. Zinn's version of American history would lead you to believe that the United States of America is the most cruel, inhuman, and evil place on the planet. It has been so long since I had this one forced down my throat in high school, but what I recall most vividly was discussing the chapters on Vietnam in class. ...more

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About Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn was a historian, playwright, and social activist. He was a shipyard worker and a bombardier with the U.S. Army Air Force in Europe during the Second World War before he went to college under the GI Bill and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Zinn taught at Spelman College and Boston University, and was a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bolo ...more

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The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy

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