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Summary: If you Can only read one book this is the one
Review: Anyone who cares at all should take the time to read this book. If you are frustrated or unhappy about the current state of our country and the world, this book is one you must read. Also, as you look at the multitude of good (and some not as good) books regarding the current state of America, you may wonder, "where should I start?" Go no further, invest in this book and get the best basic education possible. It will open your eyes (unless they are glued shut). It will allow you to think more clearly, more coherently, and be more openminded about what you are seeing and hearing. It is also a book so good, I plan to read it again. Enjoy!
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Summary: An Important Message : Study History Beyond The Classroom.
Review: As Americans in grade school we are often taught through our American history textbooks to be patriotic, proud and forgiving of America's small flaws.
Howard Zinn paints the true story of what America has become through another point of view : the victims.
Often people discount such works as lies because it does not mirror their own ideologues and offers different evidence than often taught in the schools across America.
The message taught throughout this book leaves you to question almost everything you were taught.
I may not agree with all of the words Zinn uses but his point is still as valid when the book was written, whether or not you agree with the book : Study history beyond the classroom.
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Summary: Zinn smiling all the way to the bank
Review: I have spent a lot of time with Howard Zinn, both as a student and an acquaintance. He is a deeply disturbed and viciously angry human being, and he knows he is a hypocrite. The last time we spoke was at his palatial home, built on the profits of this disgusting book. When I had the nerve to compliment his "nice digs," he smiled cynically and said, "I had no idea so many fools would buy my book." Truly, if you are looking for Truth, stay far away from this broken record.
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Summary: Some people just don't get it
Review: I understand that this book is biased. So is the history that we, Amercians, are taught. The point of the book was to tell American History through the eyes of the non white, non- privlidged point of view. More than anything, this book shows that the rhetoric of our founding fathers and leaders does not always match their actions. It says all men created equal, but the same men owned slaves, killed Native Americans, were against non-property owners voting, were against workers rights, treated women as second class citizens, etc. etc. I think that our constitution, the vision and rhetoric of our founding fathers, was some of the most enlightened and advanced political theories ever devised. This book points out how, a good portion of the time, these same men and people in power since have done just the opposite.
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Summary: Orwell would be sick
Review: Zinn seems to believe that the entire concept of America, our traditions, constitution, history, laws, etc.. is a grand conspiracy to enable the wealthy elites to rob from the poor and oppress them. Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and George Washington were nothing more than comic book villains who gave the average American the illusion of freedom to keep them from revolting in the streets. And although Zinn can never spare a kind word for the great men who built this nation of ours, he can excuse the "excesses" of people like Mao, Stalin, and Lenin as people with genuinely good intentions working to create a more just society. Individuals like Zinn fail because of hubris. They believe that they are so intelligent and thoughtful that they, and they alone, posses the ability to see through the myth of American freedom. And since they posses this unique ability to see the world as it truly is you must be either stupid or too propagandized to honestly disagree with them. Agree with them and you are an enlightened person, disagree and you are nothing more than an unfortunate fool who has been brainwashed. An honest historian takes the facts and allows his interpretations to be based on those facts. What Zinn has done, at a great disservice to the drones of doe eyed US History 105 students and the taxpayer who sends them there, is to cherry pick and distort historical events to justify his belief that all history is the history of class conflict. If you are looking for a thoughtful, balanced, introspective look at US history, shop elsewhere. If a prof makes this book required reading material for a class, don't give Zinn satisfaction of knowing he has sold another of the worst history books ever written.
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Summary: Better grab a hand saw...
Review: This book was so biased I had to cut off two legs of my chair in order to stay upright. But seriously, I've never been very politically minded, but I can tell when someone is zealously biased. Zinn is one of those people. I had the unfortunate opportunity to take a course in which this book was required reading. All I can say is that two wrongs do not make a right. High school textbooks may neglect wrongdoings in American history, but Zinn's convenient evasion of all of this nation's great achievments made me find very lame excuses to cut that class. It's a little disturbing how he manages to create the illusion that everything that has happened in American history has been orchestrated by the upper classes in order to deepen their pockets. This book is nauseatingly biased, and I recommend it only for inducing vomiting after swallowing poisons.
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Summary: Just a thought
Review: I have a few things to say to those who are quick to attack Zinn for this book being biased. well OBVIOUSLY! Didn't you read the book? He admits openly that the book is biased. It is a reaction to the biased history books that are shoved down our throats in school. Except this time, we get to read a biased book coming from the other perspective, therefore by reading both biases, one can decide for themselves which side they feel prevails over the other, or whether they are completely in the middle. Also, in regards to those who were complaining that Zinn targets the US and doesn't mention the pitfalls of the USSR and China- read the title again- A People's History of the UNITED STATES. What did you really expect? It's really quite offensive and narrow-minded to throw out words like "liberal" with such scorn and state that those who like the book are Communist/socialist/extremists. Some of us who are true scholars are just in pursuit of the truth, which cannot be achieved by putting history in a box and sticking with what you are comfortable with. Some of us are not afraid to admit that we found insight and intrigue in something that ::gasp:: goes against the conservative, blind patriotism and sugar coating of too many people the the United States. I really recommend that people read this with an open mind. By ignoring the past, we are quickly moving toward a society with very dangerous ideals. Using the Bible to justify slavery was wrong, but using it to discriminate against homosexuals is ok? By examining the past, perhaps we can do something about the future, before it's too late and we make the same mistakes again.
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Summary: who should read this?
Review: Everyone should read this book! The first history book that I have trouble putting down. I wonder why more of this stuff wasn't in the other history books I've read before. Kinda puts what's going on in the world today in much sharper focus. This is a great book.
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Summary: A good review of US failings; weak on the causes/solutions
Review: This book aims to explain how events in US history affected the rank-and-file. It aims to balance the history books that focus on leaders' actions without giving credit to how the leaders affected the rank-and-file and how the rank-and-file influenced the leaders. Zinn comes close to achieving his aim. The problem is that his accounts of the rank-and-file focus on the people most negatively affected. The average person who is not negatively affected by some policy or event, Zinn casts as just a pawn of the truly privileged and powerful. The elites, Zinn implies, conspire throughout history to mastermind power structures so that the expendable semi-privileged bourgeoisie insure the elites' continued dominance. Zinn seriously claims that gov't assistance to the poor, bussing to desegregate the schools, and affirmative action are all aimed primarily at setting the bourgeoisie against the truly needy. Some resentment is an unfortunate consequence of those programs, but I hardly think the "elites" masterminded those programs to foment resentment to secure their own power. I agree that elites pitting people against one another is a recurrent theme in history, I just do not agree with Zinn's implication that it happens according to the elites' master plan. Rather, I think the tendency to assert power over other humans is a human vice that can appear in any situation. Whether you see US social problems as resulting from conspiracy of elites or just plain old human vices, it is difficult to understand Zinn's recommendations to treat our social problems. Zinn would like to institute a federal tax on wealth of any kind. He also calls for a progressive income tax at "levels of 70-90 percent on very high incomes" and for curtailing military spending. "Thus four or five hundred billion dollars could be made available, for a universal health system, a full-time employment program, for affordable housing, public transport, the arts, the environment." Unless those programs were managed perfectly, I suspect "elites" would form within the agencies, and those programs would be vulnerable to the exact same criticisms that Zinn makes of capitalism. In short, giving the federal government more control over the means of production would not necessarily mean more power in the hands of the rank-and-file. Despite these problems, I think the book is valuable. Zinn is correct that much of the history I was exposed to in grade school and college was told from the point of view of the leaders rather than the average person. Much of the news from mainstream media outlets is sensationalized and/or filtered by the interests of the corporate owners and advertisers. Reading this book made me think of parallels between media bias now and throughout history. I really believe the spirit of the United States is to be as free, open, and egalitarian as possible. Because it's made up of human beings with all their frailties, it consistently falls short of that dream. This book is a good outline of areas where it fell short in the past and where it falls short today. To read about all of the instances where US institutions did a good job, you have to look elsewhere.
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Summary: The Truth about Columbus
Review: I understand why Mr. Zinn felt compelled to write history from the minority's viewpoint. One of the primary factors must be his witnessing how leaders, especially the one in the year 2004, have their crimes and slaughter of innocent victims ignored in general as if it's part of progress. I'm referring to the unprovoked war with Iraq to remove a dictator America propped up in the 80's & early 90's. Zinn's disclosure of Columbus, a heartless murderous criminal more on the level of a pirate than a great discoverer, out specifically to steal gold from native people's while enslaving them, made me so angry! What makes me angry is how my education was a white wash to cover up the reality Columbus was a brutal murderer no different than Saddam Heussein. Columbus severely tortured, butchered, and unjustly enslaved a gentle, sharing, giving, loving people, -- the Arawak-Taino indians -- committing genocide of an estimated 3 million people in a matter of a decade. And it happened all using the justification of the Christian religion. To think people celebrate this genocide with Thanksgiving every year as if Columbus celebrated with the Indians the discovery of America, makes me sick to my stomach. Sure, the Indians welcomed them and swam out to great them -- how typically political to use this first greeting as a means to make it look as if the Spainairds were beloved to them! Zinn's historical research shows the truly abominable behavior of sick, greedy men. Columbus was a criminal and a murderer and America still reveres him while covering=up the criminal nature of what he did in the name of God. For people who can't stomach the truth, preferring to live in a deluded state of mind of fairytales and political cover-up and lies, this book isn't for you.
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