A People's History of the United States

A People’s History of the United States is a book about the history of the United States of America from the very beginning. It was written in 1980 by Howard Zinn. Zinn is a historian, political scientist, and a social activist. I think this a very good book to read because it not only tells about the history of the United States but it give the real truth about things that have never been discussed before. The book starts off at the very beginning of America. Some of the topics discussed range from Christopher Columbus’ travels to Hernando Cortes adventures. From there it talks about slavery and such. The book is written in a time line of history. It starts from the beginning and then goes on. In history there are many conflicts. Some that were discussed were about how Christopher Columbus Day has always been a celebration. After reading this book, you may have a different view on him. It then tells about the conflicts of slavery and gives very vivid details about the conditions that slavery really consisted of. This book is the real deal. It gives you the straight facts and information about history that you never knew about. Even though A People’s History of the United States was written in 1980 and may be considered an older book, it is still a good read. The realness of the book and how it gives so much information about history that is not taught in schools is what makes this book so great. It is a very important book and it should be read by others to understand the true history. I believe the reasons the book was/is popular still hold true because it is about history. It is telling the real truth about history. History will never become a subject that is forgotten. My judgement and evaluation on A People’s History of the United States is that the quality of writing was very strong. It shows strength in its vivid details and the choice of words that were used. One of my favorite quotes from the book is a piece quoted from the Virginia slave code. It says: “Whereas many times slaves run away and lie hid and lurking in swamps, woods, and other obscure places, killing hogs, and committing other injuries to the inhabitants...if the slave does not immediately return, anyone whatsoever may kill or destroy such slaves by such ways and means as he…shall think fit…If the slave is apprehended… it shall…be lawful for the county court, to order such punishment for the said slave, either by dismembering, or in any other way…as they in their discretion shall think fit, for the reclaiming any such incorrigible slave, and terrifying others form the like practices…” That quote is one of my favorites because it is so descriptive. Another one of my favorites is a quote by writer J. Saunders Redding as he describes the arrival of a ship in North America. It says: “Sails furled, flag drooping at her rounding stern, she rode the tide in form the sea. She was a strange ship, indeed, by all accounts, a frightening ship, a ship of mystery. Whether she was trader, privateer, or man-of-war no one knows. Through her bulwarks black-mouthed cannon yawned. The flag she flew was Dutch; her crew a motley. Her port of call, an English settlement, Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. She came, she traded, and shortly afterwards was gone. Probably no ship in modern history has carried a more portentous freight. Her cargo? Twenty slaves.” That quote is another one of my favorites because it is also very descriptive. It paints a clear picture of the truth about what used to really happen. That to me is a very strong strength. In conclusion, my overall thoughts about the book are very positive. It has changed the way I look at history. It has showed me that there is a whole lot more truth about history than just what is taught in schools. One particular thing it has made me realize is that history is a lot more gruesome and violent than I originally thought. It also has given me a different perspective of Christopher Columbus. I do not see him the same as I once did. A People’s History of the United States was really an eye opener about giving the real truths about history.

Very interesting book about USA, help everyone to understand where are we from and help us to find out where we should go. History is a mirror.

This book is eye opening to say the least. Very good read. I know its a joke to some (good will hunting) but its a really good read and listened to the audio book as well. different perspectives throughout time.

History is subjective. It is written and recorded by both regular people and historians, all of whom have their own personal biases, interpretations of events, and beliefs, regardless of how conscious they are of trying to be objective. No account of history escapes this phenomenon. This brings an important question to light: Whose account of history have we been taught? For many of us, especially those of us taught in public schools, it is the version approved by people in positions of power. In A People’s History of the United States, our author Howard Zinn does the opposite, telling history from the point of view of the powerless. It starts with Columbus meeting the Native Americans in the late 1400’s. Many textbooks teach that he discovered new lands and new people and became economic partners with them. Through a European lens, this is true. If we consider this initial meeting through the eyes of the native people, however, we might interpret events differently. Columbus could not have discover America, the continent was already inhabited by millions of indigenous people. Did they trade peacefully? Perhaps at times, but Columbus’ men also enslaved many of the natives and treated them with extreme hostility. This same trend played out repeatedly as more Europeans sailed west and encountered the Native Americans. The Spanish and Portuguese subjugated the people of South and Central America, whilst the English subjugated those in the North. Perhaps we know a bit of this history, and recognize that European-Native American relations were more antagonistic than harmonious. This, again, is only a partial truth, as “more than half the colonists who came to the North American shores in the colonial period came as servants.” Subjugation was not only reserved for the Native Americans, even many white men and women were oppressed by their own European elites. It was a society in favor of the few at the expense of the many. This, more than anything, is the theme of this book. Zinn proposes that the history of The United States is a history of dominance by the elite classes over Native Americans, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, women, those living in poverty, and pretty much anyone without the ability to resist. Not only was this dominance financial, with the elite class keeping the wealth created by the labor class for themselves, but it was often physical and emotional as well. When movements of poor and working class people coalesced and petitioned for more rights and better working conditions, they were often met with imprisonment, violence, and death. The following are statistics from this book that illuminate these trends: In 1770, in Boston, the top 1 percent of property owners owned 44 percent of the wealth. In 1820, 120,000 Indians lived east of the Mississippi. By 1844, fewer than 30,000 were left. Between 1790 and 1860, the number of slaves grew from 500,000 to 4,000,000. In 1877, 100,000 workers went on strike against the railroad companies. In 1886 there were over 1,400 strikes, involving 500,000 workers. In 1914, the income of 44 families making $1 million or more equaled the total income of 100,000 families earning $500 a year. During World War Two, there were 14,000 strikes involving 6,770,000 workers. In 1950, the military had a budget of about $12 billion out of a total US budget of about $40 billion. In 1960, the military budget was $45.8 billion—49.7 percent of the total budget. In 1961, about 200 giant corporations out of 200,000 corporations—one-tenth of 1 percent of all corporations—controlled about 60 percent of the manufacturing wealth of the nation. In 1977, the top 10 percent of the American population had an income thirty times that of the bottom tenth; the top 1 percent of the nation owned 33 percent of the wealth. On June 12, 1982, 1,000,000 people gathered in Central Park, New York City, to express their determination to bring an end to the arms race. In 1990, the average pay of the chief executive officers of the 500 largest corporations was 64 times that of the average worker. By 1999, it was 475 times the average worker’s pay. In 1998, one of every three working people in the United States had jobs paying at or below the federal poverty level (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau). Zinn asserts that the history of The United States is a history of control by the elite class. Consider the founding fathers: They were nearly all lawyers by profession and were “men of wealth, in land, slaves, manufacturing, or shipping.” Forty of the fifty-five men held government bonds, according to the records of the Treasury Department. These men were obviously from the elite class, which begs the question: If they were truly determined to compose a Constitution that ensured equally for all, why were no slaves, women, servants, or men without property allowed to be a part of the writing process? Consider a recent presidential election: In 1980, Ronald Reagan received 51.6 percent of the popular vote while Jimmy Carter received 41.7 percent. These numbers look good until you factor in the reality that “only 54 percent of the voting-age population voted, so that—of the total eligible to vote—27 percent voted for Reagan.” A democracy is supposed to be a system of government in which the people govern themselves by electing representatives from amongst their ranks. However, if half of eligible voters don’t bother to participate and don’t believe in the system, is it really a democracy? The country was thus presided over by a man who was selected by just over one-quarter of the citizenry. In his first term in office, Reagan cut $140 billion dollars in social programs while simultaneously increasing the ‘defense’ budget by $181 billion. He clearly cared more about allocating money for the military industrial complex than for the poor. A People’s History of the United States is a long and methodical book—it covers events from colonial times up to the 2000 presidential election and the “war on terror.” It is a necessary alternative to the versions of history proposed to many of us in school and should be taught in conjunction with them. The question that came to my mind when I finished reading it was this: Is the story of The United States a story about liberal democracy or a story about elite power?

This book offers a fresh and eye-opening perspective on American history. Unlike traditional histories, it focuses on the experiences of everyday people like workers, women, minorities, and activists rather than political leaders. The book is engaging, thought provoking, and challenges readers to really think about power, inequality, and the stories often left out of mainstream history. It’s a compelling read for anyone interested in a more inclusive view of the past.

Apart from his unique view of American history and of his treatment of many of the landmark events of that history, Howard Zinn gives us any number of interesting and noteworthy observations in the course of this 700-page text. I beg your indulgence while we look at just a few…. On p. 73, “(t)o say that the Declaration of Independence, even by its own language, was limited to life, liberty and happiness for white males is not to denounce the makers and signers of the Declaration for holding the ideas expected of privileged males of the eighteenth century. Reformers and radicals, looking discontentedly at history, are often accused of expecting too much from a past political epoch – and sometimes they do. But the point of noting those outside the arc of human rights in the Declaration is not, centuries late and pointlessly, to lay impossible moral burdens on that time. It is to try to understand the way in which the Declaration functioned to mobilize certain groups of Americans, ignoring others. Surely, inspirational language to create a secure consensus is still used, in our time, to cover up serious conflicts of interest in that consensus, and to cover up, also, the omission of large parts of the human race.” And then, on p. 96: “(t)he problem of democracy in the post-Revolutionary society was not, however, the Constitutional limitations on voting. It lay deeper, beyond the Constitution, in the division of society into rich and poor. For if some people had great wealth and great influence; if they had the land, the money, the newspapers, the church, the educational system – how could voting, however broad, cut into such power? There was still another problem: wasn’t it the nature of representative government, even when most broadly based, to be conservative, to prevent tumultuous change?” For the answer to that last question, we can, of course, always turn to the pleasantly incendiary words of no less than Thomas Jefferson, which Mr. Zinn naturally and deftly does: “‘I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing…. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government…. God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion…. The Tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.’” One can only imagine how Jefferson would’ve reacted to the following open letter penned by Ralph Waldo Emerson to President Van Buren in 1838 as the still young nation hung its head in shame for the Trail of Tears it had just blazed: “(t)he soul of man, the justice, the mercy that is the heart’s heart in all men, from Maine to Georgia, does abhor this business…a crime is projected that confounds our understanding by its magnitude, a crime that really deprives us as well as the Cherokees of a country for how could we call the conspiracy that should crush these poor Indians our government, or the land that was cursed by their parting and dying imprecations our country any more? You, sir, will bring down that renowned chair in which you sit into infamy if your seal is set to this instrument of perfidy; and the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world” (p. 147). Was the very noble Van Buren at all distressed by the death of thousands of Cherokee Indians along this Trail of Tears when, at the end of the same year, he spoke to Congress? “It affords sincere pleasure to apprise the Congress of the entire removal of the Cherokee Nation of Indians to their new homes west of the Mississippi. The measures authorized by Congress at its last session have had the happiest effects” (p. 148). (Emphasis is mine.) And if you think that all of the wars the U. S. participated in right up to Vietnam were “good” wars (as I did until now), consider what we have in the way of a diary entry from a certain Colonel Hitchcock: “I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors…. We have not one particle of right to be here…. It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on a war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses, for, whatever becomes of this army, there is no doubt of a war between the United States and Mexico…. My heart is not in this business … but, as a military man, I am bound to execute orders” (p. 151). As I’ve already said, Zinn has a singular way of characterizing some of history’s more significant events. As yet another example, I give you the following from p. 171 (on the first page of Chapter 9, titled “Slavery without Submission, Emancipation without Freedom”: “…it was Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, not John Brown. In 1859, John Brown was hanged, with federal complicity, for attempting to do by small-scale violence what Lincoln would do by large-scale violence several years later – end slavery.” And lest there still be any doubt about Abraham Lincoln’s position on American blacks and the issue of slavery, Zinn gives us these two very telltale quotes: “I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people…. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race” (p. 188). Moreover, and in direct response to the Editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley, we find this (on p. 191): “Dear Sir: … I have not meant to leave any one in doubt…. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about Slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps to save this Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union…. I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free. Yours, A. Lincoln.” But history (and human “progress”) moves on – and so, we have this: “(i)n 1877, (the year, according to David Burbank, in his book REIGN OF THE RABBLE, ‘no American city has come so close to being ruled by a workers’ soviet, as we would now call it, as St. Louis, Missouri’ – p. 250), the same year blacks learned they did not have enough strength to make real the promise of equality in the Civil War, working people learned they were not united enough, not powerful enough, to defeat the combination of private capital and government power” (p. 251). And Zinn then opens Chapter 11 (“Robber Barons and Rebels”) with this: “(i)n the year 1877, the signals were given for the rest of the century: the black would be put back; the strikes of white workers would not be tolerated; the industrial and political elites of North and South would take hold of the country and organize the greatest march of economic growth in human history. They would do it with the aid of, and at the expense of, black labor, white labor, Chinese labor, European immigrant labor, female labor, rewarding them differently by race, sex, national origin, and social class, in such a way as to create separate levels of oppression – a skillful terracing to stabilize the pyramid of wealth” (p. 253). For those who think the “Occupy Wall Street” movement of the new millennium was a singular invention of the millennial generation, you might want to consider what Mary Ellen Lease, of the newly formed People’s Party, had to tell those assembled at that party’s first convention in 1890 in Topeka, KS: “Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street…. Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags…. The politicians said we suffered from overproduction. Overproduction, when 10,000 little children … starve to death every year in the U. S. and over 100,000 shop girls in New York are forced to sell their virtue for bread…. “There are thirty men in the United States whose aggregate wealth is over one and one-half billion dollars. There are half a million looking for work…. We want money, land and transportation. We want the abolition of the National Banks, and we want the power to make loans direct from the government. We want the accursed foreclosure system wiped out…. We will stand by our homes and stay by our firesides by force if necessary, and we will not pay our debts to the loan-shark companies until the Government pays its debts to us. “The people are at bay, let the bloodhounds of money who have dogged us thus far beware” (p. 288). For those (like me until now) who’ve always thought only the best of Teddy Roosevelt, the following two direct quotes – not to mention William James’s rejoinder – might be a bit of a news-breaker: “(i)n strict confidence…I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one” (p. 297). And in his address to the Naval War College, he has this to say: “(a)ll the great masterful races have been fighting races…. No triumph of peace is quite so great as the supreme triumph of war” (p. 300). Thankfully – and from James – comes the sobering suggestion that he (Roosevelt) “gushes over war as the ideal condition of human society, for the manly strenuousness which it involves, and treats peace as a condition of blubberlike and swollen ignobility, fit only for huckstering weaklings, dwelling in gray twilight and heedless of the higher life…” (p. 300). For those who think Obama’s recent initiative at a rapprochement with Cuba bodes well for that impoverished Caribbean island, you might want to consider what another historian, Philip Foner, writes about the last time (towards the end of the nineteenth century) this country took a keen interest in Old Havana: “(e)ven before the Spanish flag was down in Cuba, U. S. business interests set out to make their influence felt. Merchants, real estate agents, stock speculators, reckless adventurers, and promoters of all kinds of get-rich schemes flocked to Cuba by the thousands. Seven syndicates battled each other for control of the franchises for the Havana Street Railway, which were finally won by Percival Farquhar, representing the Wall Street interests of New York. Thus, simultaneously with the military occupation began … commercial occupation” (p. 310). But it gets even better on the other side of the planet, and the same William James who pronounced upon the clearly bellicose character of Teddy Roosevelt has the last word on American behavior in the Pacific: “God dam* the U. S. for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles” (p. 315). And on that same subject, consider what none other than Mark Twain has to say: “(w)e have pacified some thousands of the islanders and buried them; destroyed their fields; burned their villages, and turned their widows and orphans out-of-doors; furnished heartbreak by exile to some dozens of disagreeable patriots; subjugated the remaining ten millions by Benevolent Assimilation, which is the pious new name of the musket; we have acquired property in the three hundred concubines and other slaves of our business partner, the Sultan of Sulu, and hoisted our protecting flag over that sway. “And so, by these Providences of God – and the phrase is the government’s, not mine – we are a World Power” (p. 316). Where, by the way, was all of this war-mongering and industrial development at breakneck speed headed? Zinn’s choice of a quote from Sinclair Lewis’s BABBITT couldn’t be more appropriate: “(i)t was the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm-clocks, with all modern attachments, including cathedral chime, intermittent alarm, and a phosphorescent dial. Babbitt was proud of being awakened by such a rich device. Socially it was almost as creditable as buying expensive cord tires. “He sulkily admitted now that there was no more escape, but he lay and detested the grind of the real-estate business, and disliked his family, and disliked himself for disliking them” (pp. 383-384). Two more brief quotes from Howard Zinn himself, and then I’ll conclude. On p. 636, “(w)e may, in the coming years, be in a race for the mobilization of middle-class discontent.” And almost immediately following, on p. 637, “(c)apitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.” I suggested, at the beginning of this review, that Howard Zinn had a “unique view of American history.” That suggestion was in no sense ironic or tongue-in-cheek. After a couple of weeks and 700+ pages, I can only say that this is some of the most valuable reading time I’ve ever spent. I’m humbled – and yes, also somewhat ashamed – that I’ve discovered this historian and his work at the very ripe old age of 64. I obviously wish it could’ve been sooner. But as it was not, the next best thing I could do was give my copy of A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, still slightly warm to the touch, to my daughter on the occasion of her 21st birthday. God willing, she’ll grow up better informed than I – at the very least, about the country whose passport she carries. RRB 06/08/15 Brooklyn, NY

Wonderful read

When thinking about Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States, I am reminded of E.H. Carr's seminal work "What is History?" whereby he stated: "The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate". As Carr famously stated, millions of people had crossed the Rubicon, but only Julius Caesar's crossing in 49 BC has been given normative value by historians. For those familiar with the philosophical treatment of historical understanding in Tolstoy's War and Peace, this sentiment will ring true. A People's History is designed to give voice to those millions who passed the rubicon but never found their way into the annuals of history. A couple of points. This book was intended to be a supplement as opposed to a strictly chronological account of history that will give you the bullet points for the most important people, dates and events. [sic] It is not meant to be a replacement for a more standardized textbook. Secondly, Zinn did not hate America, and he in fact stated: "I want young people to understand that ours is a beautiful country, but it has been taken over by men who have no respect for human rights or constitutional liberties. Our people are basically decent and caring, and our highest ideals are expressed in the Declaration of Independence, which was that all of us have an equal right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The history of our country, I point out in my book, is a striving, against corporate robber barons and war makers, to make those ideals a reality-and all of us, of whatever age, can find immense satisfaction in becoming part of that." Regardless of your political position, between the Great Recession and the Iraq war, there is a relevance to this sentiment that cuts across political lines. Now, what one will notice in the bulk of the one star reviews is the sense that either the reviewer has not read the book, they copied and pasted their criticism from another source or they have strictly given the book one star because it does not conform with their view of reality. "Blame America first", "socialism", "communism", "Marx, "liberal propaganda", you can easily get the gist of the talking points because many American conservatives apparently got the same memo in dismissing anything they don't agree with. The disservice they do to themselves and the sphere of ideas in the outright dismissal of any perspective which does not conform to their own is truly sad. When someone gives a book one star merely for not conforming to their view of reality,they have obviously lost the plot. In university I knew many conservative history professors who liked and used Zinn's work. They believed it was important to incorporate and deal with the claims that Zinn made. You cannot whitewash history and blindly stick by the most comforting narrative. That does not mean that one should agree with Zinn's conclusions or think that he has a monopoly on the truth. Zinn himself would not have wanted that. For those who claim Zinn is a socialist or any other kind of -ist, that he is not completely objective, they have obviously never done any research. Pure positivism was dismissed long ago. Even Max Webber started that our subjective bias comes in the moment we choose to study something, for by seeing the subject matter as valuable, we have placed a normative value on it. There is no pure value objectivity, stating one's position and bias from the outset is what responsible social scientists do these days. A dryly academic text with an obvious bias concealed by a detached form of writing gives a falsely omniscient perspective whose reality is psychological but not objective. However they write, they are just a person, and without expressing their biases it will inevitably turn up in their work without necessarily being obvious. This is far more dangerous than what Zinn does in stating his bias from the outset. So it is a red herring to dismiss Zinn for having a perspective. We all have one and it will come into whatever we do. There is no knowable, objective reality (for humans) living in the Platonic world of perfect forms. History was a puzzle of immeasurable size that was blown apart and the pieces scattered over the cosmos. The vast majority of the pieces are gone, never to return. We are stabbing at an imperfect speculation, not ultimate truth when we engage in historical study. Any physicist will tell you that the particle wave duality of light has pretty much closed the book on the notion that we can objectively, perfectly know anything. This book is important because the poison of partisan politics has come to dominate even the dialogue of academic research. If the sole criterion for giving a book one star is the notion that you don't agree with its thesis, then you obviously live in a fragile world and are incapable of being challenged intellectually. This book is of the upmost importance for the conservative to read and digest. In developing a coherent narrative of the United States, you need to wrestle with its sins and determine, despite our historical shortcomings and transgressions, what is it that makes this imperfect union the pinnacle of nation states if one agrees with that prospect. For the liberal, you should not view Zinn's work as the last word on anything, but rather use it as a stepping stone to further develop your own historical understanding and consider how well has American done on a relative scale in light of the political, societal and human failings that have marred all human civilizations. This book is well worth the challenges it presents, and should be a 5 star treat for the conservative who loves his country and wants to develop the most cogent and nuanced argument as to why that is the case despite those unsettling realities to be found in this book as well as the liberal who wants to give voice to his disaffection with certain aspects of American society and the reasons why we need to change it. This is not another tool in the mindless and poisonous Manichean bifurcation of American politics. It is a vehicle to help you strengthen and deepen your understanding of US history, regardless from which direction you are coming. Recommended to all who are interested in the journey of learning as opposed to a presupposed outcome that serves a vested interest.