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This powerful and controversial study turns orthodox American history upside down to portray the social turmoil behind the "march of progress".
Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People's History 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, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of America's greatest battles - the fights for fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality - were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through the Clinton years A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, is an insightful analysis of the most important events in US history. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.From the Back Cover
This powerful survey was written as a response to a widespread demand for a serious general history of the United States from the time of Columbus to the present, written from a radical, non-establishment point of view. It was intended as a counterweight to the many conventional American histories which chronicle the country’s story through the activities of political leaders, heroes and saviours of the nation. Here instead is history ‘from the bottom up’. Powerful, fluent and argumentative, its vigorous reinterpretation of the American achievement, and its cost, has provoked debate amongst historians and laymen alike since it first appeared in 1980.
This new edition brings the story up-to-date with a new chapter on the Clinton presidency, terrorism and the move to war.
"Zinn has written a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited politically and economically and whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories. …the book is an excellent antidote to establishment history. Seldom have quotations been so effectively used; the stories of blacks, women, Indians, and poor laborers of all nationalities are told in their own words. While the book is precise enough to please specialists, it should satisfy any adult reader."
LIBRARY JOURNAL (US)
"…he tells an important and neglected part of the truth"
Marcus Cunliffe, THE GUARDIAN
"…he succeeds admirably in his second objective of ‘disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win’"
Charles Glass, NEW STATESMAN
"Professor Zinn writes with an enthusiasm rarely encountered in the leaden prose of academic history, and his text is studded with telling quotations from labor leaders, war resisters and fugitive slaves."
Eric Foner, NEW YORK BOOK REVIEW
Until his retirement, Howard Zinn was Professor of Political Science at Boston University, and his book – passionate, critical, even disrespectful as it can be – remains the work of a scholar as well as a radical.
--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.Browse and search another edition of this book.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
63 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jaw-dropping stuff,
By A Customer
This review is from: People's History of the United States: 1492 to the Present (Perennial Classics) (Paperback)
I found this book a fascinating and accessible read; it makes you want to read excerpts to anyone who happens to be in the same room as you. Zinn does not claim to be unbiased; in fact, he freely admits that he has written the book from the viewpoint of ordinary American people.Zinn clearly expounds his theory on American government and its control over American society and how this control dates right back to the founding fathers. Zinn explores how many different groups have been manipulated and exploited: native American indians, negros, the working class, draftees, women, farmers, unionists, the middle class, etc., etc. Further, he argues that the purpose of American foreign policy is, and has been, to protect and expand America’s commercial interests behind a mask of protecting democracy and freedom. Zinn explores America’s military interference in Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and others. This is one history book which is not in the least turgid and I would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in history, politics or people.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The new world - from a new perspective,
By E N Cuentro (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A People's History of the United States: 1492-present (Paperback)
The opening chapter of Zinn's book is an essay on the political content of history. With Christopher Columbus as the case in point, Zinn shows that by choosing to emphasise certain facts, and downplay others, mainstream historians - in fact, all historians - stake out a political position. Even, or perhaps especially, when they would say they are being 'neutral' or 'objective'. In history and, by implication, the present; perspective matters.That is why Zinn tells the story of the United States, not through the eyes of its statesman, great financiers, generals or industrialists, but through the eyes of ordinary people. That is to say: the displaced Native Americans, the enslaved Black people, the women struggling for the vote, the exploited working class, the civil rights movements, and the victims of US foreign policy during the Cold War. This is remarkable. The popular narrative of the United States as land of liberty and opportunity is stripped bare, and torn down. In its place: a nation of contradictions and tensions, built on class war, ethnic cleansing, and manifold other repressions. Now, in fact, a similar story could be told about a great many countries in the world. One reason it is particularly worth listening to Zinn's story about the US, is that the myth of the US, and its emancipatory principles, is so strong. As the premier world power of the present day, it does us well to understand where that power comes from. Most important of all, this is neither a bleak book, nor a preachy one. It is a great work of narrative history, and as such lays as much emphasis on the courage and achievements of ordinary people, as it does upon their suffering. A great piece of writing. A book for our times, courageous and humane.
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A revolutionary to the point of life-changing book,
By
This review is from: A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Although I have read a few histories of the United States this one had the scales falling from my eyes and smashing to smithereens on almost every page.Never have I read an historical account that exposes the self-serving, elitist and hypocritical actions of government in such a brutal and frank way. That it happens to be about the USA is almost irrelevant given that most countries are guilty of the same hypocrisies and double standards that the US has been - certainly the UK has over its long history. A book that leaves you shocked and angry about past and present deeds and embarrassed about the status quo. It is a 'must read' book - even for non-Americans.
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