Holy pignolia, this took me a long time to read.

But it was worth it. Zinn takes you from Columbus's arrival in North America all the way up to the crazy (read: corrupt) 2000 presidential election, highlighting the stories that don't normally get told in history textbooks or mainstream media. It's a "people's history," so he tells Vietnam from the POV of the protesters, industrialism from the workers, slavery from the slaves, etc. I learned a lot of new (and disturbing) aspects of American history reading this book. Zinn's also my favorite kind of historian-- he's clearly excited about and invested in the subject, so he writes about it in a lively voice, using specific examples and anecdotes to make it real. History doesn't feel dead in his hands; it is very much alive and even now informing the choices we make as a country.

That said, this book is unapologetically left-leaning (Zinn explains that since so much of what is already written leans the opposite direction, he doesn't feel the need to keep his book balanced), so not everyone will appreciate it. It also assumes a baseline of American history knowledge in many places, so it would be well coupled with additional resources to lay out some basic facts about certain time periods or events (like wars).

I recommend reading this book alongside something a lot fluffier if you're going to go for the long haul. Otherwise, pick a chapter and read it alongside other books from/about that period and let them inform each other.

Top 5 books of the year. Holy shit.

As with most nonfiction reads, now I'm ravenous for more. And I'm sure the print book is loaded with references and Further Reading and all that good stuff. I deeply appreciated Zinn's Afterword where he recognized his shortcomings with regard to minority people, specifically Latino/Latina issues and the LGBTQ community; I'd been disappointed earlier in the book with how Stonewall got something of a passing mention but there was barely anything said about Reagan's blind eye toward the devastation of the AIDS crisis.

My quibbles aside, this was excellent and I will highly recommend it to any who ask. There's so much in here I didn't know; wasn't taught; had never even heard of, let alone considered. Even reading about things that happened in my lifetime under the Bush/Clinton/Bush administrations, things I thought I knew (or at least vaguely remembered hearing about) were presented in such a way as to seem new, juxtaposed against the history already presented + my present awareness.

The anger is real.

“The memory of oppressed people is one thing that cannot be taken away, and for such people, with such memories, revolt is always an inch below the surface.”



Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States answers the question from (a much later novel by) Yaa Gyasi, “We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing?" Zinn presents a sort of parallel history of the United States and the people who form that history, but somehow never made it into the history books. They are on the losing side of economic revolutions and protest movements. They are not part of the ruling class or the elite.

Zinn approaches history through a civil rights/anti-war/view from the downtrodden lens that some may see as biased (and maybe is), but that really only makes it more clear that constructing history has long been an ideological endeavor. While not neatly divided up into wars and presidents, I see A People's History as still relevant in discussions on how we should approach a history of this country.

“Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals the fierce conflicts of interest (sometimes exploding, often repressed) between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, dominators and dominated in race and sex. And in such as world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.”

It's appropriate that I finished this on the day of the first 2016 Presidential Debate, because tonight we'll witness the apotheosis of the greed, falsehoods, and willful ignorance that this work sought to expose. This audiobook was in 35 segments, each on average an hour long. Some people I had spoken with said that they found this book tedious, but I was mostly enthralled. If anything, maybe hearing about American colonization, genocide, rapine, and corruption only felt more blunted as the blows came.

If there's one word that this book made me feel, it is "ashamed." I grew up in a patriotic somewhat liberal family, and yet nary a whiff of any of this was present in the childhood in which I was encouraged--in school, by the media, by friends and by family--to honor and revere the United States and its vaunted, idealistic provenance. I guess in my pre-law school politics it was always enough to focus on the future and how we are handling things now, but Zinn's masterwork shows the startling, shameful roots of our current system in the depraved dealings of our past.

In this work, Zinn de-bowdlerizes a history made out of whole, faux-patriotic cloth. It is absolutely indispensable for any student of American history or for anyone wishing to understand the current state of American society.

I like the book, because, well, I know that I should like it. After all, if it’s good enough to get a shout out from Good Will Hunting, it should be good enough for me. And of course, I find Zinn’s project of telling an alternative history admirable and important. But here’s the thing: I don’t really like the book. I kind of felt like Zinn essentializes all of the subaltern figures of history as mostly good, righteous people (for example, the poor racist southern farmer isn’t that bad; he was just taught to be racist by rich white plantation owners to reinforce the plantation system). I just felt like he gave rather flat and generic portrayals of the poor white southerner, the socialist, etc. Also, he couldn’t mention minority women with out mentioning their “double burden,” a classification I think many women would quarrel with. On top of that Zinn starts out with the premise that it is possible to challenge the conventional narrative of progress by telling a people’s history, by looking to the voices normally ignored in text books. He barely questions whether or not it is truly possible to recover a people’s history; he barely mentions that a lot of these voices, especially those of the Native Americans obliterated by Europeans, are forever lost. I might have wanted more of a discussion of that somewhere in Zinn’s nearly 700 pages. To me the book was good. Maybe even great. Especially the chapters on Columbus and the New Deal. But I think it also deserves some criticism. Why it is so unanimously heralded, I don’t quite get. Chalk that up to one more thing that Will Hunting knows that I don’t.

As a fan of narrative history -- embodied by great works like n  Battle Cry of Freedomn and n  The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America 1932-72n -- reading A People's History of the United States was an alternately invigorating and frustrating experience. Representing Howard Zinn's attempt to counter "Great Man" interpretations of American history and fasten his personal ideology to an overarching national story, the book excels in descriptions of the perpetual mistreatment of American Indians, the social and political struggles against embedded white supremacy that defined the Civil Rights Movement, and the activist backlash against the Vietnam War. Zinn was knowledgeable and passionate enough about each of those subjects that he could have probably written a compelling book about any one of them. It's in trying to include them and many other subjects in a centuries-spanning narrative that emphasises the common people at the deliberate expense of undeniably influential political players where he delivers mixed results. Presidents as consequential as Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson scarcely intrude on Zinn's proletariat-focused story except to do something nefarious at the behest of business interests and the military-industrial complex. It's fair to say that Zinn speaks truth to power (be it the political establishment or the historical status quo) but it's a selective truth that has little time for details that don't fit his purpose. Chapters on the American Civil War and WWII/The New Deal are quite poor while Zinn's portrayal of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident is a masterclass in excising facts that don't support the darkest interpretation of a catalytic event. On the flipside, both the closing chapter elaborating on Zinn's vision of a better America and an afterword copping to some of the book's blind spots are great. After reading both this and n  You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Timesn, I have to admit I prefer Zinn the memoirist to Zinn the historian.

MIND BLOWN

In many ways, this is not my typical five-star review. The People's History of the United States is tedious, repetitive, and an overall slog to get through. Though so much of the information provided is wholly interesting, some of the Zinn's examples are merely empty fodder and these cause the already long book to slow. Zinn was anti-oppression, and this means that sometimes he seems pro-whatever-is-being-oppressed, though I don't think this is always the case. For instance, it's easy to surmise from the many examples that Zinn is pro-socialist, but I'm not entirely sure that's true. Certainly, he backed the socialist stance when it was the voice that was being oppressed. And certainly, of the major forms of government, Zinn likely felt the most affinity with socialism. But in later chapters as well as in the conclusion, it seems that Zinn acknowledges that socialism is also a broken system—a step forward, but not the solution. Additionally, Zinn's anti-oppression position means that he sometimes illustrates a part of history from an angle that obscures some bit of inconvenient truth. This is unfortunate, because it gives the naysayers cause to spit on this book and declare it “communist propaganda” (or whatever the taboo phrase of the day is). These moments are few and far between and majority of this book is quite historically accurate, in my layman's opinion.

The People's History of the United States was also difficult for me to get through because I've long studied this history and I already knew the more major events covered in this book. Perhaps many of those other narratives I've read owe their information to Zinn, but having come to this book later in my journey, I found much of the story to be old news. That's not to say Zinn doesn't provide considerable history I have not come across in my previous studies. In fact, what Zinn most convinced me of was how so many of these events that I thought were motivated by various reasons primarily (perhaps exclusively) came about because of money.

The reason The People's History of the United States deserves a five-star rating is because, though it's not an enjoyable read, it is such a immense labor of love and passion for the subject. Zinn put his heart and mind into every page of this book and it shows. Even so, I was tempted to slap four stars on this book and move on until I came to Zinn's afterword. Prior to this, Zinn had merely provided over six-hundred pages of dry facts without much commentary or call-to-action. Here, in these final pages, Zinn stirred my emotions. He took all the information he'd provided and agitated it within me and said, “now what are you going to do?” It was an effective challenge.

The People's History of the United States is the kind of book that is difficult to read straight through. Did I learn some things? Absolutely. But so much of what I learned has already sifted straight through my brain. This is the sort of book one who is passionate about the subject should own. It is the kind of book one should keep handy in case someone is eager to argue about the perfection of the state. It is the kind of book that should be picked up from time to time and serve as a reminder to the people of their history and the vicious circle that has been built up around them, keeping them caged for over five hundred years.

sometime in that heady, idealistic autumn of 2002 eric schleder and i were cubicle mates at, gee i think it was still pharmacia, yes, it was still pharmacia. we decided to read people's history in sort of a two person book club. i think we agreed to tackle 3 chapters a week. that was reasonable being that eric had a toddler and another child on the way and i am just lazy.

i stalled out after the chapter about Andrew Jackson, the man adorning our US currency 20 dollar bill. I was so outraged (yes stacey, if you ever read this, i will concede that I am generally looking for any reason to be outraged these days, and the moment i am describing could very well have been the genesis, the violent seed of dissent that was planted) at the slaughter of the seminole indians at his command that i guerilla tactic'd all over a 20 dollar bill writing in blood red marker that andrew jackson was responsible for the death of the seminole nation and proceeded to pay for my lunch at the cafeteria at the pharmaceutical company i was sucking so sweetly from the udder of, with the above mentioned informative $20.00

so after years of sitting on the shelf, i decided it was cold and snowy enough to hunker down and finish the book. i have been reading way too many 'self-help' and 'soul-searching' themed books lately. while essential reading for even the novice narcissist, i thought it might be good to read about other peoples problems for a while.

there is an expanded twentieth century edition that Zinn released. it takes us through the 911 era...a far more microscopic look at the last 100 years than the 100 or so pages it received in people's history. i suppose i should add that to my to-read list.

sd 12/25/07

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 in the middle, but without making people take a look at the horrors committed, the overwhelming ideology of America right or wrong will continue. Howard loves America and hates what our government has done in our name, from the beginning to the present.

In this epic tome, Howard Zinn seeks to look at the history of the United States through new eyes. So many historians, and even more textbooks, have a traditional view of American progress throughout the centuries, though Zinn seeks to examine it all through the eyes of the people who were part of it. Though many of these people might have been left out of the limelight, this view of American history enriches the already hearty dialogue about progress and regression under the banner of America, as well as provide the reader with something complex about which to ponder when they consider events etched onto the American psyche. Beginning his discussions as far back as Columbus and is first encounters with the Indigenous, Zinn explores the language and cultural barriers that created a situation of dominance by the Europeans in which they were able to turn things to their advantage. These early swindling are by no means a shock to the knowledgeable reader, but their impact resurfaces much later in the tome, during discussion of social outrages of the 1960s and into the present time. Zinn also touches on the creation of the slave trade and how it turned an entire race on its head, sold and loaded up from African ports and left to live lives of endless servitude with no chance of ever seeing the light of freedom. Again, Zinn’s discussions fuel a flash forward in which race relations in America were strained to the point of bursting, where Caucasians could and would not see fellow African-Americans as equal or worthy of any fair treatment. Working through some of the nuances of creating a formal country and the early settlements of the United States, Zinn takes some time to explore the Civil War, where blood was shed and a country torn apart. However, he also hints at the fact that there was another war brewing, in which social groups were on the rise. Economic inequality began to push many to the brink of starvation and death, while the few pulled the strings and got richer. This strain fostered a push for social changes, or at least the strength of the social movement, which included strikes, labour disputes, and even violent clashes with the established business class. Such a mentality continued through the devastation of the Depression, and heralded in a new saviour in the form of FDR. Under his New Deal, America sought to dig itself out of the trenches, if only to ensure everyone had enough to eat and could survive with targeted government handouts. War and its fallout continued to fuel the American machine, for it was not only the defeat of the Axis powers, but ideological skirmishes in Korea and Vietnam that brought the country headlines around the world. Zinn chooses to focus a great deal on Vietnam, as it was surely an indelible mark on the American psyche, which took a devastating blow with the loss of this military engagement. Zinn pushes through to new cultural and gender clashes in a country that was still trying to heal from the divisions developed in Southern Asia, with the rise of the women’s movement, as well as those who supported gay rights. America was changing faster than it could react to all that was placed before it. Zinn continues from there, weaving together the tapestry that was the people’s history, seen through their eyes and fought using their own battle plans. Brilliant in its delivery, Howard Zinn brings history to life in a thorough and captivating manner. Recommended for those who want some alternative perspectives to the way things developed, as well as the reader who has a passion for long tomes that educate with every page flip.

I chose to read this book after devouring one that Zinn influenced by Peter Irons, whose focus was strictly the Supreme Court of the United States. As with that tome, Zinn chooses the areas on which he wishes to expand and takes his time developing the detailed analysis. There is so much to say, though the chapters seem to flow naturally into one another, showing the story is all interconnected in some way. The reader is able to learn a great deal about America through the eyes of Howard Zinn, though the author does not pull any punches. He calls things out as he sees them and challenges the narrative norms that have been inculcated into the minds of many for centuries. His choice to look at the ‘little guy’ or leave the traditional narrative on the side is to be applauded, not only because of the perspective, but also because there is a great deal of rich history to uncover. Zinn dazzles with his attention to detail and frank comments, many of which make sense to the open-minded reader. With thorough discussions come longer chapters, all of which tell an important perspective of the American story. Dense in some spots, Zinn seeks not to entertain as much as educate, which requires long backstories at times to prove a point. It will be a dedicated and determined reader who makes their way through this piece, through I am sure none who last the marathon will be disappointed that they chose to patiently make their way through this well-paced narrative.

Kudos, Mr. Zinn, for a stunning look at America from the other side of the coin. I can only hope to find more of your work as interesting as this piece proved to be.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

No matter your viewpoint, or opinion on this book, it's worth reading just for the wider perspective.

"There is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world—by a teacher, a writer, anyone—is a judgment. The judgment that has been made is that this fact is important, and that other facts, omitted, are not important.
...
What we learn about the past does not give us absolute truth about the present, but it may cause us to look deeper than the glib statements made by political leaders and the 'experts' quoted in the press."

If nothing else—read the afterward, right here.