A People's History of the United States is a semi-nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn, in which he seeks to present American history through the eyes of those rarely heard in mainstream histories. A People's History, though originally a dissident work, has become a major success and was a runner-up in 1980 for the National Book Award. It has been adopted for reading in some high schools and colleges across the United States and has been frequently revised, with the most recent edition covering events through 2003. In 2003, Zinn was awarded the Prix des Amis du Monde Diplomatique for the French version of this book, Une histoire populaire des Etats-Unis.^[1] Over one million copies have been sold.

A reviewer for the The New York Times suggested the book should be "required reading" for students.^[2] In a 1998 interview prior to a speaking engagement at the University of Georgia, Zinn told Catherine Parayre he had set "quiet revolution" as his goal for writing A People's History. "Not a revolution in the classical sense of a seizure of power, but rather from people beginning to take power from within the institutions. In the workplace, the workers would take power to control the conditions of their lives."^[3] In 2004, Zinn published a companion volume with Anthony Arnove, titled Voices of a People's History of the United States. The book parallels A People's History in structure, supplementing it with material from frequently overlooked primary sources.

Overview

Columbus to the Robber Barons

Chapter 1, "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress" covers early Native American civilization in North America and the Bahamas, the genocide and slavery committed by the crew of Christopher Columbus, and the violent colonization by early settlers. Topics include the Arawaks, Bartolomé de las Casas, the Aztecs, Hernando Cortes, Pizarro, Powhatan, the Pequot, the Narragansett, Metacom, King Philip's War, and the Iroquois.

Chapter 2, "Drawing the Color Line" addresses early slavery of African Americans and servitude of poor British people in the Thirteen Colonies. Zinn writes of the methods by which racism was artificially created in order to enforce the economic system. He argues that racism is not natural because there are recorded instances of camaraderie and cooperation between black slaves and white servants in escaping from and in opposing their subjugation.

Chapter 3, "Persons of Mean and Vile Condition" describes Bacon's Rebellion, the economic conditions of the poor in the colonies, and opposition to their poverty.

Chapter 4, "Tyranny is Tyranny" covers the movement for "leveling" (economic equality) in the colonies and the causes of the American Revolutionary War. Zinn argues that the Founding Fathers agitated for war to distract the people from their own economic problems and stop popular movements, a strategy that he claims the country's leaders would continue to use in the future.

Chapter 5, "A Kind of Revolution" covers the war and resistance to participating in war, the effects on the Native American people, and the continued inequalities in the new United States. When the land of veterans of the Revolutionary War was seized for non-payment of taxes, it led to instances of resistance to the government, as in the case of Shay's Rebellion. Zinn wrote that "governments - including the government of the United States - are not neutral... they represent the dominant economic interests, and... their constitutions are intended to serve these interests."^[4]

Chapter 6, "The Intimately Oppressed" describes resistance to inequalities in the lives of women in the early years of the U.S. Zinn tells the stories of women who resisted the status quo, including Polly Baker, Anne Hutchinson, Mary Dyer, Amelia Bloomer, Catharine Beecher, Emma Willard, Harriot Hunt, Elizabeth Blackwell, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Fuller, Sarah Grimké, Angelina Grimké, Dorothea Dix, Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, and Sojourner Truth.

Chapter 7, "As Long As Grass Grows or Water Runs" discusses 19th Century conflicts between the U.S. government and Native Americans (such as the Seminole Wars) and Indian removal, especially that done by the administrations of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

Chapter 8, "We Take Nothing By Conquest, Thank God" describes the Mexican-American War. Zinn writes that President James Polk agitated for war for the purpose of expansionism. Citing evidence, Zinn states that the war was unpopular but that newspapers of that era misrepresented the popular sentiment.

Chapter 9, "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom" addresses slave rebellions, the abolition movement, the Civil War, and the effect of these events on African-Americans. Zinn writes that the large-scale violence of the war was used to end slavery instead of the small-scale violence of the rebellions because the latter may have expanded beyond anti-slavery, resulting in a movement against the capitalist system. He writes that the war could limit the freedom granted to African-Americans by allowing the government control over how that freedom was gained.

Chapter 10, "The Other Civil War", covers the Anti-Rent movement, the Dorr Rebellion, the Flour Riot of 1837, the Molly Maguires, the rise of labor unions, the Lowell girls movement, and other class struggles centered around the various depressions of the 19th Century. He describes the abuse of government power by corporations and the efforts by workers to resist those abuses. Here is an excerpt on the subject of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. [1]^[5]

Chapter 11, "Robber Barons and Rebels" covers the rise of industrial corporations such as the railroads and banks and their transformation into the nation's dominant institutions, with corruption resulting in both industry and government. Also covered are the popular movements and individuals that opposed corruption, such as the Knights of Labor, Edward Bellamy, the Socialist Labor Party, the Haymarket martyrs, the Homestead strikers, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Eugene V. Debs, the American Railway Union, the Farmers' Alliance, and the Populist Party.

The Twentieth Century

Chapter 12, "The Empire and the People", covers American imperialism during the Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War, as well as in other lands such as Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Zinn portrays the wars as being racist and imperialist and opposed by large segments of the American people.

Chapter 13, "The Socialist Challenge", covers the rise of socialism and anarchism as popular political ideologies in the United States. Covered in the chapter are the American Federation of Labor (which Zinn argues provided too exclusive of a union for non-white, female, and unskilled workers; Zinn argues in Chapter 24 that this changes in the 1990s), Industrial Workers of the World, Mother Jones, Joe Hill, the Socialist Labor Party, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Progressive Party (which Zinn portrays as dishonest reformers).

Chapter 14, "War is the Health of the State", covers World War I and the anti-war movement that happened during it, which was met with the heavily enforced Espionage Act of 1917. Zinn argues that the United States entered the war in order to expand its foreign markets and economic influence.

Chapter 15, "Self-Help in Hard Times", covers the government's campaign to destroy the IWW and the Great Depression. Zinn claims that, despite popular belief, the 1920s were not a time of prosperity, and the problems of the Depression were simply the problems of the poor (who Zinn claims are in permanent depression) extended to the rest of the society. Also covered is the Communist Party's attempts to help the poor during the Depression.

Chapter 16, "A People's War?", covers World War II, opposition to the war, and the effects of the war on the people. Zinn, a veteran of the war himself, notes that "it was the most popular war the US ever fought,"^[6] but claims that this support may have been manufactured through the institutions of American society. He cites various instances of opposition to fighting (in some cases greater than those during WWI) as proof. Zinn also argues against the US's stated intentions to fight racism in Europe, as it was not fighting against systematic racism in the US such as the Jim Crow laws (leading to opposition to the war from African-Americans). Another argument made by Zinn is that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not necessary, as the US government had already known that the Japanese were considering surrender beforehand. Other subjects from WWII covered include Japanese American internment and the bombing of Dresden. The chapter continues into the Cold War. Here, Zinn argues that the US government used the Cold War to increase control over the American people (for instance, eliminating such radical elements as the Communist Party) and at the same time create a state of permanent war, which allowed for the creation of the modern military-industrial complex. Zinn believes this was possible because both conservatives and liberals willingly worked together in hysterical reaction to anti-Communism. Also covered is the US's involvement in the Greek Civil War, the Korean War, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and the Marshall Plan.

Chapter 17, "'Or Does It Explode?'" (named after a line from Langston Hughes' poem "A Dream Deferred," referred to as "Lenox Avenue Mural" by Zinn), covers the Civil Rights movement. Zinn argues that the government began making reforms against discrimination (although without making fundamental changes) for the sake of changing its international image, but often did not enforce the laws that it passed. Zinn also argues that while nonviolent tactics may have been required for Southern civil rights activists, militant actions (such as those proposed by Malcolm X) were needed to solve the problems of black ghettos. Also covered is the involvement of the Communist Party in the movement, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Freedom Riders, COINTELPRO, and the Black Panther Party.

Chapter 18, "The Impossible Victory: Vietnam", covers the Vietnam War and resistance to it. Zinn argues that America was fighting a war that it could not win, as the Vietnamese people were in favor of the government of Ho Chi Minh and opposed the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, thus allowing them to keep morale high. Meanwhile, the American military's morale for the war was very low, as many soldiers were put off by the atrocities that they were made to take part in, such as the My Lai massacre. Zinn also tries to dispel the popular belief that opposition to the war was mainly amongst college students and middle-class intellectuals, using statistics from the era to show higher opposition from the working class. Zinn argues that the troops themselves also opposed the war, citing desertions and refusals to go to war, as well as movements such as Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Also covered is the US invasions of Laos and Cambodia, Agent Orange, the Pentagon Papers, Ron Kovic, and raids on draft boards.

Chapter 19, "Surprises", covers other movements that happened during the 1960s, such as second-wave feminism, the prison reform/prison abolition movement, the Native American rights movement, and the counterculture. People and events from the feminist movement covered include Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, Patricia Robinson, the National Domestic Workers Union, National Organization for Women, Roe v. Wade, Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will, and Our Bodies, Ourselves. People and events from the prison movement covered include George Jackson, the Attica Prison riots, and Jerry Sousa. People and events from the Native American rights movement covered include the National Indian Youth Council, Sid Mills, Akwesasne Notes, Indians of All Tribes, the First Convocation of American Indian Scholars, Frank James, the American Indian Movement, and the Wounded Knee incident. People and events from the counterculture covered include Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Malvina Reynolds, Jessica Mitford's The American Way of Death, Jonathan Kozol, George Denison, and Ivan Illich.

Chapter 20, "The Seventies: Under Control?", covers American disillusion with the government during the 1970s and political corruption that was exposed during the decade. Zinn argues that the resignation of Richard Nixon and the exposure of crimes committed by the CIA and FBI during the decade were done by the government in order to regain support for the government from the American people without making fundamental changes to the system; according to Zinn, Gerald Ford's presidency continued the same basic policies of the Nixon administration. Other topics covered include protests against the Honeywell Corporation, Angela Davis, Committee to Re-elect the President, the Watergate scandal, International Telephone and Telegraph's involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, the Mayagüez incident, Project MKULTRA, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee, the Trilateral Commission's The Governability of Democracies, and the People's Bi-Centennial.

Chapter 21, "Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus", covers the Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush administrations and their effects on both the American people and foreign countries. Zinn argues that the Democratic and Republican parties keep the government essentially the same (that is, they handled the government in a way that was favorable for corporations rather than for the people) and continued to have a militant foreign policy no matter which party was in power. Zinn uses similarities between the three administrations' methods as proof of this. Other topics covered include the Fairness Doctrine, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, Noam Chomsky, global warming, Roy Benavidez, the Trident submarine, the Star Wars program, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the Iran-Contra Affair, the War Powers Act, US invasion of Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War, the Invasion of Grenada, Óscar Romero, the El Mozote massacre, the Bombing of Libya, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States invasion of Panama, and the Gulf War.

Chapter 22, "The Unreported Resistance", covers several movements that happened during the Carter-Reagan-Bush years that were ignored by much of the mainstream media. Topics covered include the anti-nuclear movement, the Plowshares Movement, the Council for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze, the Physicians for Social Responsibility, George Kistiakowsky, The Fate of the Earth, Marian Wright Edelman, the Citizens' Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes, the Three Mile Island accident, the Winooski Forty-four, Abbie Hoffman, Amy Carter, the Piedmont Peace Project, Anne Braden, César Chávez, the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Teatro Campesino, LGBT social movements, the Stonewall riots, Food Not Bombs, the anti-war movement during the Gulf War, David Barsamian, opposition to Columbus Day, Indigenous Thought, Rethinking Schools, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Chapter 23, "The Coming Revolt of the Guards", covers Zinn's theory on a possible future radical movement against the inequality in America. Zinn argues that there will eventually be a movement made up not only of previous groups that were involved in radical change (such as labor organizers, black radicals, Native Americans, feminists), but also members of the middle class who are starting to become discontented with the state of the nation. Zinn expects this movement to use "demonstrations, marches, civil disobedience; strikes and boycotts and general strikes; direct action to redistribute wealth, to reconstruct institutions, to revamp relationships."^[7]

Chapter 24, "The Clinton Presidency", covers the effects of the Bill Clinton administration on the US and the world. Zinn argues that, despite Clinton's claims that he would bring changes to the country, his presidency kept many things the same as in Reagan-Bush era. Topics covered include Jocelyn Elders, the Waco Siege, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Crime Bill of 1996, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, the 1993 bombing of Iraq, Operation Gothic Serpent, the Rwandan Genocide, the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the 1998 bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan, the Impeachment of Bill Clinton, Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Stand for Children, Jesse Jackson, the Million Man March, Mumia Abu-Jamal, John Sweeney, the Service Employees International Union, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the Worker Rights Consortium, the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Spare Change, the North American Street Newspaper Association, the National Coalition for the Homeless, anti-globalization, and WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity.

Chapter 25, "The 2000 Election and the 'War On Terrorism'", covers the 2000 presidential election and the War on Terrorism. Zinn argues that attacks on the US by Arab terrorists (such as the September 11, 2001 attacks) are not caused by a hatred for our freedom (as claimed by President George W. Bush), but by grievances with US foreign policies such as "stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia... sanctions against Iraq which... had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children; [and] the continued U.S. support of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land."^[8] Other topics covered include Ralph Nader, the War in Afghanistan, and the USA PATRIOT Act.

Criticism

In a 2004 article critiquing the 5th edition of A People's History of the United States, Georgetown University professor of history Michael Kazin argues that Zinn's book is too focused on class conflict, and wrongly attributes sinister motives to the American political elite. He also characterized the book as an overly simplistic narrative of elite villains and oppressed people with no attempt to understand historical actors in the context of the time in which they lived. Kazin writes, "The ironic effect of such portraits of rulers is to rob 'the people' of cultural richness and variety, characteristics that might gain the respect and not just the sympathy of contemporary readers. For Zinn, ordinary Americans seem to live only to fight the rich and haughty and, inevitably, to be fooled by them."^[9] Furthermore, Kazin argues that A People's History fails to explain why the American political-economic model continues to attract millions of minorities, women, workers, and immigrants, or why the socialist and radical political movements that Zinn favors have failed to gain widespread support among the American public.

However, Zinn claims in the first chapter of the book (when explaining his method of telling history) that he is not, in fact, simply making out the leaders of the country to be merely villains, but also as victims of their own villainy:

My point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners. Those tears, that anger, cast into the past, deplete our moral energy in the present. And the lines are not always clear. In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run... the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.

— A People's History of the United States, page 10

Likewise, the book also points out that Zinn did try to understand the historical figures in context, such as when discussing the effect of the Declaration of Independence's statement "all men are created equal" on the rights of women:

To 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 discontently at history, are often accused of expecting too much from a past political epoch—and sometimes they do.

— A People's History of the United States, page 73

Much earlier, in 1980, Harvard historian Oscar Handlin criticized the book in The American Scholar, calling it a "deranged fairy tale".

It simply is not true that “what Columbus did to the Arawaks of the Bahamas, Cortez did to the Aztecs of Mexico, Pizarro to the Incas of Peru, and the English settlers of Virginia and Massachusetts to the Powhatans and the Pequots.” It simply is not true that the farmers of the Chesapeake colonies in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries avidly desired the importation of black slaves, or that the gap between rich and poor widened in the eighteenth-century colonies. Zinn gulps down as literally true the proven hoax of Polly Baker and the improbable Plough Jogger, and he repeats uncritically the old charge that President Lincoln altered his views to suit his audience. The Geneva assembly of 1954 did not agree on elections in a unified Vietnam; that was simply the hope expressed by the British chairman when the parties concerned could not agree. The United States did not back Batista in 1959; it had ended aid to Cuba and washed its hands of him well before then. “Tet” was not evidence of the unpopularity of the Saigon government, but a resounding rejection of the northern invaders.^[10]

Zinn responded to the charges, writing in to a future issue of the magazine, and Handlin responded again, "Zinn's letter displays the same inability to present the facts accurately that characterized his book."^[11]

Other editions and related works

A version of the book titled The Twentieth Century contains only chapters 12-25 ("The Empire and the People" to "The 2000 Election and the 'War on Terrorism'"). Though it was originally meant to be an expansion of the original book, recent editions of A People's History now contain all of the later chapters from it.

In 2004, Zinn and Anthony Arnove published a collection of more than 200 primary source documents titled Voices of a People's History of the United States, available both as a book and as a CD of dramatic readings. Writer Aaron Sarver notes that although Kazin "savaged" Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, "one of the few concessions Kazin made was his approval of Zinn punctuating 'his narrative with hundreds of quotes from slaves and Populists, anonymous wage-earners and ... articulate radicals.'"^[12]

Whether Zinn intended it or not, Voices serves as a useful response to Kazin’s critique. As Sarver observes, "Voices is a vast anthology that tells heartbreaking and uplifting stories of American history. Kazin will be hard-pressed to charge Zinn with politicizing the intelligence here; the volume offers only Zinn’s sparse introductions to each piece, letting the actors and their words speak for themselves."^[12]

Younger readers version

After many years of requests from parents and teachers, in July 2007 Seven Stories Press released A Young People's History of the United States, an illustrated, two-volume adaptation of A People's History for young adult readers (ages 10-14). The new version, adapted from the original text by Rebecca Stefoff, is updated through the end of 2006, and includes a new introduction and afterward by Howard Zinn.

In his introduction, Zinn writes, "It seems to me it is wrong to treat young readers as if they are not mature enough to look at their nation's policies honestly. I am not worried about disillusioning young people by pointing to the flaws in the traditional heroes." In the afterword, "Rise like lions", he asks young readers to "Imagine the American people united for the first time in a movement for fundamental change."

In addition, the New Press released an updated (2007) version of The Wall Charts for A People's History — a 2-piece fold-out poster featuring an illustrated timeline of U.S. history, with an explanatory booklet.

References in popular culture

In the 1997 film, Good Will Hunting, Will Hunting (Matt Damon) tells Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) that A People's History will "knock you on your ass." Zinn mentioned the film's stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, in a later edition of the book. In February of 2007, an abridged audio presentation of A People's History was released featuring an introduction by Zinn himself, with Matt Damon reading excerpts from the book. Damon, in his youth, was a neighbor of Zinn's.

In The Sopranos episode, "Christopher", Tony Soprano's son A.J. is assigned to read the book for a history class which is studying Christopher Columbus. A.J. tells his father that the book says Columbus was a slave trader, which prompts Tony to call the book "bullshit". The episode deals with Columbus' legacy and the different views people have on him.

In 2005, American composer R. Chris Dahlgren (b. 1961) set portions of the book to music in his contemporary classical work, A People's History, scored for baritone, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello.^[13]

In The Simpsons episode, "That 90's Show", Marge Simpson, after having entered college, is seen reading the book.

Referenced by the band NOFX in the song, Franco Un-American off 2003's the War on Errorism album. "I never looked around, never second-guessed / Then I read some Howard Zinn now I'm always depressed"

Current editions

• Zinn, Howard (2005). A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ISBN 0-06-083865-5.
• Zinn, Howard (2003). A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-052842-7.
• Zinn, Howard (1980). A People's History of the United States. Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-014803-9.

• Zinn, Howard (2003). The Twentieth Century. Harper Perennial. ISBN 0060530340
• Zinn, Howard (2005). Arnove, Anthony (ed.). Voices of a People's History of the United States. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-628-1.
• A Young People's History of the United States, adapted from the original text by Rebecca Stefoff; illustrated, in two volumes; Seven Stories Press, New York, 2007
  • Vol. 1: Columbus to the Spanish-American War. ISBN 978-1-58322-759-6
  • Vol. 2: Class Struggle to the War on Terror. ISBN 978-1-58322-760-2
• Teaching Editions
  • A People's History of the United States: Teaching Edition
  • A People's History of the United States, Abridged Teaching Edition, Updated Edition
  • A People's History of the United States: Volume 1: American Beginnings to Reconstruction, Teaching Edition
  • A People's History of the United States, Vol. 2: The Civil War to the Present, Teaching Edition
• A People's History of the United States: The Wall Charts; designed by Howard Zinn and George Kirschner; New Press (2007). ISBN 978-1-56584-171-0

See also

• Lies My Teacher Told Me
• People's history

References

External links

• Publisher HarperCollins on Zinn and A People's History
• Proposed TV series based on A People's History
• Online text of A People's History of the United States
• Readings From "A People's History of the United States"
• Readings From "Voices of a People's History of the United States"