Name: A People's History of the United States
Rating: 4.141129032258065 (124 reviews)
ISBN: 9780062397348

Howard Zinn

A People's History of the United States

Katy Watkins

Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, the churches, the popular literature taught that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck.

As for the subtitle of this book, it is not quite accurate; a "people's history" promises more than any one person can fulfill, and it is the most difficult kind of history to recapture. I call it that anyway because, with all its limitations, it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movemnents of resistance. 

That makes it 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.

All those histories of this country centered on the Founding Fathers and the Presidents weigh oppressively on the capacity of the ordinary citizen to act. They suggest that in times of crisis we must look to someone to save us […]. They teach us that the supreme act of citizenship is to choose among saviors, by going into a voting booth every four years to choose between two white and well-off Anglo-Saxon males of inoffensive personality and orthodox opinions.

The idea of saviors has been built into the entire culture, beyond politics. We have learned to look to stars, leaders, experts in every field, thus surrendering our own strength, demeaning our own ability, obliterating our own selves. But from time to time, Americans reject that idea and rebel.

What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor—inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing—permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United states would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.

Igor Lanko

No Mobs or Tumults, let the Persons and Properties of your most inveterate Enemies be safe." Samuel Adams advised: "No Mobs-No Confusions-No Tumult." And James Otis said that "no possible circumstances, though ever so oppressive, could be supposed sufficient to justify private tumults and disorders...

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.

Shawn Camp

Constantly on my desk during college, just finished the audiobook and I'm still consider this an essential book for anyone interested in American history. Consider this the starting point to any topic or era and proceed from there onto more area focused studies.

Greg Talbot

Few “history” books open so jarringly. Arawak tribesmen, native Americans, see the European ships of Columbus in harbor. Columbus and his men demand to be taken to gold. So begins the injustice. In the process submit the tribes to slavery, torture and death. Zinn writes “to emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves-unwittingly to justify what was done”. Zinn’s opus is all about emphasizing the victims, the minority, the repressed, the enslaved, the beaten, the “un-American”. Paddling through some 500 years of American history (1492-2000), Zinn presents history in a very charged, and very political manner. How you respond to the book, may have a lot do with whether or not you see this as a historical or activist literature. Read as a historical book, the problems are many. Zinn’s scope and aspirations are admirable, but he spends disproportionate amount of time on subjects and chapters of history. There is little to no discussion of the great depression. America’s involvement in WW2 is limited to Japanese interment camps and the nuclear weapon deployment. Embarrasingly written, Zinn meshes the presidencies of Carter, Reagan and Bush into the same chapter, giving attention to 5th graders poems, and obscure activists. If you can put politics aside and approach the book from a readability perspective, it’s still a muddled mess. Consider Chomsky’s work “Hegemony or Survival”, which examines American imperialism in a critical manner; Chomsky writes with detail and logical structure that is persuasive and thought provoking. The point is that there is material here to work with, but Zinn's biased wording and selective historical stories undermine his own goals. Zinn lacks the finesse and structure to really earn any reader’s trust. Reading the book from an aspirational/activist view point, you may get something more out of the text. Zinn’s world is decidedly black and white. There are elites and the masses. There are the voiceless and the powerful. The European invaders and the natives. Zinn is at his finest when he portrays “The Other Civil War”, and discusses the rise of unions and worker’s rights. The first hand accounts are rousing, but the issue becomes when Zinn tries to tie pretty much everything to class struggle and oppression. An aperture to Zinn’s perspective is written toward the end where he states, ““I wanted in writing this book, to awaken a greater consciousness of class conflict, racial injustice, sexual inequality and national arrogance. (p.686). Clearly the book does give voice to overshadowed tragedies such as the Native American genocide and Civil Rights activists . But for readers who demand an author be accountable to facts, be accountable to context and be accountable to fairness, this book simply fails to deliver.

A people's history of the United States

M. Sosotris

This was a stressful read, but such an important one. Many minority activists throughout US history have insisted that the United States has always been more concerned with power and influence of the military and the wealthy than it has been with the welfare of everyday Americans, and this book definitely supports that worldview.

So many parts of American history were touched on here that I had never heard of in the depth given here. The workers revolts between the depressions of the 1890s and the 1930s exist in popular culture in fragments (such as the musical Newsies) but I had no idea the full extent of the strikes, protests, socialist activism, and atrocities committed during this time. 

Also, so many policies that are shocking and appalling people about the current US presidency, only a few days old as of this review, are hardly new. Laws attacking minorities, immigrants, and vulnerable communities have been eagerly endorsed by Republicans and Democrats for centuries. 

I appreciate how the author arranges and collects his data, supporting claims with reputable sources, and points out his own shortcomings regarding suppositions without clear evidence but which fit the facts, allowing readers to judge the validity of the various claims.

Reading history helps us avoid falling into the same traps, and this book reveals that we are doing just that, and have been for a long time.

Would highly recommend this one.

Cody Degen

an incredible book that made me really sad.
a good rebuttal to the idea that atrocities that happened in the past had the full support of all americans and that we only realized what we did was bad later. there were always contemporaries fighting against the worst of us. which is both heartening and also depressing because, well, the atrocities happened despite this

Eitan Hershkovitz

An eye opening take on history that reveals the true foundation of America was built on the many deaths and resistance to submission of ordinary folk by the elite, not the ideals of a few privileged founding fathers.

rumbledethumps

My 9th grade history teacher told us that if we only remembered one thing from her class, it should be this: All history is an interpretation.

Almost no historians acknowledge this in their works written for the public, but Zinn admits it right up front. "Thus, in that inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history, I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees...."

Instead of using traditional interpretations, the ones typically presented in high school history books, he looks at history through a different lens, the lens of class and racial conflict. While this is fairly commmonplace today, this book was borderline revolutionary when it was first published in 1980. (I read the revised and updated edition from 2003.)

While he sometimes uses anecdotes to generalize and overstate the feelings and sentiments of "the people," this is an important work, one that laid the groundwork for all of the new histories that followed. 

Regardless of your politics, this book should be read, if for no other reason, to remind us all what Mrs Hoffman taught us in 9th grade: All history is an interpretation.

Michael Springer

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 wrong anyway, and rich people have no advantages over poor ones--I'm not sure how you can reconcile these ideas. 

One common critique of Howard Zinn is that this book, if taught by itself, will present a skewed version of history that inspires a general hatred of rich people. So, I fully expect these reviewers to give low ratings to every history book, including those that pretend to be objective. By giving a low rating to only the books that point out flaws in the U.S. government, these people are essentially admitting the direction of their own bias. Of course, we're all biased, whether we're writing history books or reviewing them. If I weren't politically biased towards LIKING this book, I'd probably give it a four-star rating because there were some topics I wish Zinn would've gone into that he didn't.

All historians have an agenda, so the obvious solution is to teach from two or more textbooks with conflicting views. There. Problem solved! Moving on...

I'm gonna talk about the book itself now, so that I remember to do so. Then, I'm going to get into political rant mode, because I want to talk about why Zinn and the Tea Party SHOULD be best friends if people were more rational than they are. 

The Part Where I Talk About the Book:

Zinn, in the newest versions of this book, discusses U.S. history from its origins all the way up to Bush Jr.'s presidency. Throughout, he pulls no punches, questioning the motives of those in power regardless of their political party, because there's really not that much difference between the right and the left. He covers a whole lot, even considering the length of the book, and has done a lot of work since the book's original publication to add sections addressing the plight of those segments of our population that were ignored in the earliest printings. Keep in mind as you're reading this that there really WASN'T anything like this book when it was written. Before Zinn, no schools taught history from the perspective of the lower classes...in fact, most of them STILL don't. I know mine didn't. So, I think we need more historians like Zinn, willing to challenge the assumptions we make about history. Like every academic field, history should be evolving and growing more nuanced over time. 

I should've known I'm incapable of actually FOCUSING on the book. 

The Part Where I Talk About Other Stuff:

As those who have talked to me about politics know, I have a lot of frustration with the tea party. First off, some of them don't realize how batshit nuts Sarah Palin is. That's bad. And, that's not nearly as bad as the fact that they don't realize how batshit nuts GLENN BECK is. 

 


But, more importantly, the so-called Tea Party developed at the same time that a democrat entered office, developed under the leadership of republicans, yet developed saying they were independent from this big-business-focused party, and that they were all about lowering taxes. Pardon me while I take that with a VERY BIG grain of salt. I'm still willing to be proven wrong, though, if it turns out that the tea party actually DOES want to cut taxes, and not just assist the federal government in deep-throating big business a little bit more. Until SOME political party is willing to come right out and say, "Guys, we're spending more than 500 billion THIS YEAR on the military. We could pretty much kill everything alive a few times over with the weapons we have stockpiled. Maybe it's time to think about cutting part of THAT spending instead of complaining about health care expenses." Until someone comes right out and says that, I'm not declaring my allegiance to any party.

I have yet to hear anyone willing to challenge the importance of the military industrial complex...anyone in politics, that is. A lot of normal humans think this is a pretty fucking solid place to cut spending. 

The government can only be improved if we as citizens are willing to call it out when it acts in ways that are unethical. The notion that patriotism is connected to a blind faith in the current version of the political structure is foolish. Those who really believe in freedom will recognize that freedom applies to everyone, including those of us who want to examine whether or not the government is operating in our interests. After examining it, a lot of people are convinced it isn't. 

That said, we're all gonna get along better when we stop focusing on the issues that we don't agree on, and focus on what we think a government should do. When we say the government is "of the people, by the people, and for the people," I think "the people" includes everyone who lives here, including those of us who didn't make any money on the bailout, and those of us who don't want to help finance murder abroad through "Overseas Contingency Operations." I would think pro-lifers would agree with me on that.

Anyway, I'm going to climb off my soap box now, but I give this book my recommendation. Read it if your American history education hasn't included enough skepticism.

I love the overall premise of this book, and it was absolutely worth reading, but wow it is long.

Melanie Richards

I sometimes felt as though Zinn was perhaps a bit too cynical, or that in some topics he was grasping for straws. However, this is on the whole an important, inspiring book, and it would serve the American people well if it were widely read. I'd love it if this were included in high school curriculum, and perhaps it is somewhere, but too many of the events are too fresh and controversial for that to be likely.

A people's history of the United States, 1492-present

Kevin Bertolero

Definitive confirmation that since its founding in 1776 (and long before that), the United States government has been in favor of racism, white supremacy, colonialism, corporate power, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, philanthrocapitalism, ableism, cishet patriarchy, imperialism, jingoism, and anti-sex work puritanism. 

OUR GOVERNMENT HAS ALWAYS FUCKING SUCKED.

michael haaf

Let not my rating dissuade you from reading this book. My quarrel is not with the content, nor with the interpretation. I find the collection of stories and statistics bound within to be both morbidly interesting and essential (in the opinion of an amateur history dilettante) to properly understanding the history of the United States. So please, don't dismiss me prematurely - I'm not one of those post-re-revisionist crazies. In fact, I'd been unsuccessful at scouring for content like this in Wikipedia articles for years. Finding this book was a minor miracle. But that's just the problem: this book read like a series of Wikipedia articles. Or like William Shatner's autobiography. There was no. cohesion. 

Each chapter focuses on a distinct era and a correspondingly distinct subset of people; logical enough, but not preemptive of the chaos reigning within each chapter. Each chapter is a smorgasbord of loosely related (if that!) stories and statistics. There are no introductions, no summaries, nor conclusions; these trivialities are left to reader interpretation. Perhaps these omissions were intentional, perhaps not; in any case, they made for a frustrating read. There's no sense of proportion or balance or importance within each chapter, and thus each chapter feels exactly the same: like a whirlwind of interesting accounts and anecdotes that will promptly be forgotten. 

Let me clarify: I recommend that you read this book. There's important information here, people! Howard Zinn's interpretation of America's history is invaluable; as far as I know, it's the first of its kind to deliberately contradict Churchill's adage, "History is written by the victors". I am just frustrated that this book leaves me with nothing but faint impressions and forgotten statistics.

Mark Stenberg 

what an eye-opening, life-changing book 

if you care about history, race, politics, or wealth in america, it’s required reading

A People's History of the United States

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