Rating: 
Summary: America really IS the great Satan
Review: As I read this book, I started wondering how it could be considered a serious book, and how it could be taught in college. Zinn looks through a lens that sees all actions in history as part of a conspiracy to keep "the people" down. He does this by getting readers to believe that the U.S. is always evil, and other nations always poor victims of that evil. This is what struck me - the guy that supposedly wants to help "the people" really has utter contempt for them. Is he the only one who is telling us the truth? Has the entire population of the United States gone through the last 200 years of history with no one but Zinn able to see what is really happening? The evils of communism are almost completely ignored. His scholarship is very loose, and consists primarily of making assertions about America's evil without support, and then repeating it in the hopes that repetition will persuade. Or, he quotes other radical authors as sources. He blames the U.S. for the Korean war. He repeatedly makes allusions intended to compare the U.S to the Nazis, and indicate we are morally equivalent. I suspect the people who like this book are those who have limited understanding of history in the first place. Several reviews have raved about the fact that it doesn't read like history. I suspect that is because it is not. Rather, it is an author's attempt to focus on certain incidents where we don't look so good, and pretend that they are the American Story. When an author tells you that objectivity is impossible, as Zinn has, beware. Story time is beginning.
Rating: 
Summary: biased, but a priceless work
Review: Sure Zinn puts left spin on history, but more important is that he uncovers tragedies in American history that we aren't taught in public schools. How Columbus was a monster, yellow journalism, internment camps, the hidden agendas behind the usage of the A-bomb over Japan, the list goes on and on. You can disagree with Zinn, and you would not be wrong or right. The main point is that he tells us things that most of us don't want to hear, actual events that happened in American history that our education institutions don't talk about. This work also makes us appreciate freedom of the press even more. I don't think that totalitarian states would allow someone to uncover their dirty little secrets as Zinn has uncovered some of Americas' dirty little secrets. There is NOTHING unpatriotic about this book, in fact there is nothing more patriotic than dissent. It shows that one cares enough about a country to take the time to criticize it, and hopefully change things for the better. Anyone who tells you otherwise probably belongs at a mass book burning.
Rating:
Summary: A biased, but essential analysis of American history
Review: This book is a must read. A lot of his points are true, and a lot are radical leftist rhetoric. The fact of the matter is we need this kind of information. Sweeping our past and present wrongdoings (internment camps, racism, sexism, etc) under the carpet is an egregious act to commit. Zinn exposes many of these wrongs that are not told in conventional history books. This should not be the only history book you read, it is something that should be read after reading any run-of-the mill high school history text. Even if you disagree with most of Zinn's points you must agree that we are lucky to live in a country that allows freedom of press, without that right great men like Zinn would never be heard
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent way to expand intelectual horizons
Review: Over all, a fantastic book. While it certantly does not jive well with everyone's political philosophy (I have already read numerious people call Zinn a pinko, socialist, communist, etc., when in he openly admits he is none of the above), that is the point. It is to expose peolpe to a point of view, and events in history, that they may not have seen before. At these ends, Zinn is 100% successful. What I also admired about the author is that he comes out and admits that his writting very well may be biased, but that is a characteristic intrinsic to writting, having to select which facts to include and which to exclude. I can say that this book should be read by most anyone, expecially those with romantic ideas of "Old Glory".
Rating:
Summary: Historical Must-Read
Review: This is an amazing book. It is well researched and well-written, and gives a very clear perspective of important historical events, a perspective that is very useful in understanding our nation. The book certainly has its bias, but so does every other history book ever written. To get the real story you must look at all sides of the issues. History is not a simple thing to analyze - you can't just make blanket statements about past events. What happened 50 years ago? Well, millions of people did millions of things! I think that it is crucial that our population realize that most, if not all, of our civil liberties came about because people had the guts to protest, complain, and basically raise hell about the BS they were going through. It all started with the Bill of Rights, which, by the way, was only added after much complaining from the people (the original constitution had nothing about freedom of speech, separation of church and state, unreasonable searches, etc. . .). How did we get the women vote? How did we end segregation in the South? How did we get the 40-hour work week? People raised hell, they protested, they rose up, challenged their government and the establishment, fought incredible odds, and made this country what it now is!
Rating:
Summary: Essential Alternative History of the U.S.
Review: Zinn's work is a seminal radical history of the US which set the stage for the many alternative histories that now exist. The book is exhaustively researched as well as lively. Furthermore, Zinn makes no attempt to hide his perspective, unlike so many histories which claim to relate the "facts" while selecting stories which justify their version of history.
Zinn has few ongoing themes throughout his book. One is that capitalist development in the US has come at the expense of the lives of millions of indians, slaves, and workers. Another theme is that progress for the folks at the bottom of the US class structure has come through struggle. Zinn also argues that the US government generally has sided with businesses against labor. All of these themes are supported extensively and proven effectively.
This book is a much-needed antidote to uncritical US histories. I highly recommended it for anyone interested in studying US history from the perspective of those at the bottom.
Rating: 
Summary: Tired, Dull, and Wrong
Review: The late C. Vann Woodward wrote that the tragic and ironic implications of American history had been obscured "by the national legend of success and victory," and that America needed "criticism from historians...who can penetrate the legend without destroying the ideal." That is precisely what Woodward did in his own work. But what Howard Zinn seeks is something entirely different. Rather than view the mainstream of history with balance and objectivity, his effect is to destroy the ideal by concentrating entirely on past inequities. The result is a tired, predictable stream leftist orthodoxies, anti-American, anti-corporate, and anti-authoritarian postures in support of The Cause. Zinn's book is teeming with condemnation of American crimes, large and small. Yet he is far less interested in describing the barbarism of the Left, either in terms of its utopian theory or distopian reality. In the end, we are left with a treatment that willfully ignores the essential truth of America. Despite its flaws and its shortcomings, America has produced a prosperity unequaled in human history into which immigrants willingly stream from every corner of the Earth, each eager to take part in the society that offers them more freedom, liberty, and tolerance than any that ever existed. For a balanced treatment of American history, consider Paul Johnson's "A History of the American People." Johnson's "people's history" is by far the superior work of scholarship and writing. Best of all, it is free of the hate and pessimism that marks Zinn's book, without ignoring or diminishing the more unsavory aspects of the nation's past.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Should Be Assigned Reading
Review: I read this book at the suggestion of Will Hunting from the movie, "Good Will Hunting." Later, and after reading this phenomenal book I learned that Howard Zinn was a neighbor of Matt Damon's and that he left a lasting impression on the actor (and if you read this book you will understand why). This is an amazing book! I wish that high schools across the country would use it, at the very least, as a supplement to their textbooks. It offers a different voice to the traditional history book -- and shows us the darker side of our heritage as a country. Most importantly, however, it teaches us through clear and passionate writing about morality, fairness, justice, and equality. This is a fantastic way for a history teacher to reach their students -- I guarantee it will promote class discussion!!
Rating:
Summary: "Why were we not taught this in school", or "Are we blind"
Review: Haven't read it all, but this book is a must have. Take a look at the chapter on the Vietnam "conflict" -- more like a smoke screen. We were not there to combat mutated Marxism, but to look out for our OWN interests -- mainly economical. Establishing a puppet government and ensuring its continued success would basically procure much valued trade rights. But, we were not given all the factors involved. After all, would you rather fight oppression, or fight for our monetary interests. But, as I said, I haven't finished the book, and only gave one example of its numeous contents, so I suggest that if your "inquiring mind" wants to know how Andrew Jackson compares to Adolf Hitler, you read this book. Furthermore, in the light of the September 11th tragedy, you should BUY this book, not go to your local library to, or ask a friend who has the book if you can, borrow Mr. Zinn's work.
Rating:
Summary: a deeply flawed, yet readable book
Review: There are two positive things to note about this book: first, regardless of what you think about his radicalism, Zinn is a gifted writer who can make 500 pages flow like a continuous story. Second, when this book was originally published, it made an important contribution to the backlash against the traditional teachings of American History. But now comes the bad medicine: the scholarship is completely one-sided (mostly foreign, leftist, isolationist sources), and despite his insistence in the introduction that he is not a hater of America, the West, etc., he clearly belongs to the "blame-america-first" and "economics-is-everything" schools of thought. His class-based analysis of the war of independence and the constitution makes one wonder if there was anything good to come out of that critical period of history. Most revealing is Zinn's rehashing of the old tradition of northern isolationist sentiment, which always finds an unruly president conspiring against the Congress and the people. We learn that in the Mexican-American war our soldiers provoked the Mexicans to fire the first shot; that the government was probably behind the bombing of the USS Maine, which lead to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War; that Wilson had already been planning to have the Lusitania sunk in order to have a pretext for US intervention in WWI; that FDR (here comes the big one) orchestrated Pearl Harbor; that South Korea (under US direction) made so many gross provocations as to only force the North to invade; that US ships unprovokingly fired on the peace-loving North Vietnamese; that we told Iraq we would remain neutral so as to encourage them to invade Kuwait and give us an excuse to occupy the Persian Gulf; are you starting to get the picture? Well, that's what this book is all about from beginning to end. The bottom line is that it would be one thing to accurately note America's past and present sins (wiping out the natives, slavery, racism, economic inequality, etc.) while also taking the time to point out that the U.S. has always had so many overlooked qualities (civil liberties, political stability, opportunities for advancement, etc.). It's quite another (and this is not an exageration) to effectively depict the United States, from beginning to present, as an evil empire that dupes its own citizens into ignorance in order to persue an elitist economic agenda. As stated in the beginning, its a very smooth, attention-grabbing read, but frankly closer to fantasy than fact.
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