A People's History of the United States

1492-present

702 pages

English language

Published Aug. 21, 2001 by Perennial Classics.

ISBN:
978-0-06-093731-7
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OCLC Number:
46976473

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4 stars (7 reviews)

A People's History of the United States is a 1980 nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presented what he considered to be a different side of history from the more traditional "fundamental nationalist glorification of country". Zinn portrays a side of American history that can largely be seen as the exploitation and manipulation of the majority by rigged systems that hugely favor a small aggregate of elite rulers from across the orthodox political parties. A People's History has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States. It has also resulted in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories that previously were ignored. The book was a runner-up in 1980 for the National Book Award. It frequently has been revised, with the most recent edition covering events through 2005. In 2003, Zinn …

10 editions

A Justice-Focused Communist History of the US

4 stars

This book would be more accurately titled "A Communist History of the United States," since much of the analysis is explicitly Marxist. That's not to say it's a bad history - I especially appreciated the focus on US labor history, and the critical examination of US history overall is interesting. Still the analysis can get grating, veering extremely far into long discredited communist tropes. Beyond that, the history starts to degrade as we approach the modern era - saying that the US was no different than Nazi Germany was particularly egregious. Zinn also doesn't show his work, reaching conclusions based on single anecdotes without any evidence that these were broader trends. Similarly frustrating are when numbers are thrown out without context (e.g. $1.35 per day salary in 1863, 28 sailors out of 800 dead from disease on a one month voyage).

Despite all of this, overall the book stands as …

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Subjects

  • United States -- History

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