Synopses & Reviews
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, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. Zinn shows that many of our country's greatest battles the fights for an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, women's rights, racial equality were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.
Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's years in office as well as the 2000 election and the War on Terrorism, A People's History of the United States, which was nominated for the American Book Award in 1981, features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.
Review
"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, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"[A] classic of revisionist American history....Zinn's work is an vital corrective to triumphalist accounts, but his uncompromising radicalism shades, at times, into cynicism." Publishers Weekly
Review
"One of the most important books I have ever read in a long life of reading....It's a wonderful, splendid book a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." Howard Fast, author of Spartacus and The Immigrants
Synopsis
Almost 700 pages long, this completely revised and updated edition brings a populist classic kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Written by an activist historian, A People's History presents dimensions of American history formerly glossed over in the high textbooks.
Synopsis
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.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [689]-708) and index.
About the Author
Howard Zinn is a historian, playwright, and social activist. He was a shipyard worker and Air Force bombardier before he went to college under the GI Bill and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has taught at Spelman College and Boston University, and has been a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bologna. He has received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V. Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award, and the Lannan Literary Award. He lives in Auburndale, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
1 Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress 1
2 Drawing the Color Line 23
3 Persons of Mean and Vile Condition 39
4 Tyranny Is Tyranny 59
5 A Kind of Revolution 77
6 The Intimately Oppressed 103
7 As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs 125
8 We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God 149
9 Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom 171
10 The Other Civil War 211
11 Robber Barons and Rebels 253
12 The Empire and the People 297
13 The Socialist Challenge 321
14 War Is the Health of the State 359
15 Self-help in Hard Times 377
16 A People's War? 407
17 "Or Does It Explode?" 443
18 The Impossible Victory: Vietnam 469
19 Surprises 503
20 The Seventies: Under Control? 541
21 Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus 563
22 The Unreported Resistance 601
23 The Coming Revolt of the Guards 631
24 The Clinton Presidency 643
25 The 2000 Election and the "War on Terrorism" 675
Afterword 683
Bibliography 689
Index 709