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A People's History of the United States

By Howard Zinn
A People s History of the United States 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 Am

  • Title: A People's History of the United States
  • Author: Howard Zinn
  • ISBN: 9780060838652
  • Page: 408
  • Format: Paperback

    • 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.

    • A People's History of the United States Best Download || [Howard Zinn]
      408 Howard Zinn
    A People's History of the United States

    About Author

    1. Howard Zinn says:
      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 Bologna He received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award, and the Lannan Literary Award He lived in Auburndale, Massachusetts.

    Comment 832 on “A People's History of the United States”

    1. Mike (the Paladin) says:
      Update I took this out of the library to attempt a reread 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 traditional belief [...]
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    2. Michael Finocchiaro says:
      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 hostage by [...]
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    3. J.G. Keely says:
      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 instant th [...]
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    4. Billy says:
      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 sopho year history class I generally use the following sentence, The theme of sopho 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 definitely a perspective that [...]
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    5. Megan says:
      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 i [...]
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    6. Warwick says:
      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 readers is much [...]
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    7. Jeffrey says:
      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 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 del [...]
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    8. Michael says:
      The ratings on this book tend to be polarized here on , 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 [...]
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    9. Julie says:
      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 us [...]
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    10. Jim says:
      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 t [...]
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    11. Carlton says:
      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 done to [...]
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    12. ``Laurie Henderson says:
      If only all of us could be as perfect as Howard Zinn Then we d be able to get up on our high horse and look down our nose at all the miserable humanity in the world that have achieved than he has.
      Reply

    13. Roy Lotz says:
      In a country famous for its historical ignorance, Howard Zinn sold two million copies of a 700 page history book In a country famous for its allergy to the left, Howard Zinn wrote a best seller from a staunchly left wing perspective Every evaluation of his book must begin and end with this achievement Whatever you like or dislike about Zinn, clearly he did something right.As you set out to judge this book, you must first decide whether it is a work of inquiry or of advocacy This distinction has [...]
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    14. Emily says:
      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 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 money and [...]
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    15. Andrew says:
      A well written, but severely flawed historical work.It reads 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 he dism [...]
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    16. John says:
      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 re [...]
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    17. Mischenko says:
      I read this for my American History course in college Really enjoyed it 4
      Reply

    18. Brian says:
      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 somewhere [...]
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    19. P.J. Sullivan says:
      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 people s m [...]
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    20. Brian says:
      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.
      Reply

    21. Ryan A says:
      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.
      Reply

    22. Jake says:
      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 [...]
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    23. Stephen says:
      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, inaccurate [...]
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    24. Cedar says:
      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 teeth fro [...]
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    25. Sam Sanford says:
      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 was cr [...]
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    26. Alex says:
      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 [...]
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    27. Rachel says:
      This book taught me 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 accurate to what was actually going on than the textbooks are, and much 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 tricks of manipulation [...]
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    28. Krista says:
      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 Amer [...]
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    29. Larry Bassett says:
      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 would [...]
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    30. Ryan says:
      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, the r [...]
      Reply

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