Rating: 
Summary: Actually it is History of American Protest and Labor Dispute
Review: Tough book to review. His bias is clear, but he is also upfront about it. I feel the greatest flaw of the book is that it paints history in incredibly "good vs evil" colors. While attesting to narrate a history of the American people, Zinn is also willing to portray much of America as remorseless villains. His portrayal of police forces make them seem as humane as stormtroopers in Star Wars. While the "underclass" have names and inspire sympathy the police forces and conservatives are faceless drones whose only role in history is to step over others. Then violence of his favorites is always justified implicitly while all other forms of violence are a symbol of tyranny. In this he falls in the same flaw he critiques, American history may at times glorify the American role and gloss over its failures, Zinn commits the same mistake in the opposite direction greatly focusing on American failures and forgetting its virtues.Zinn's book has also very little comparison to other countries, American racism, poverty and misogyny is never placed in a historical context. America's reality becomes always compared to an unexpressed ideal; with no allowance for a period of development in any historical scenario. For instance read Gordon Woods "The Radicalism of the American Revolution" for a completely different view on the American Revolution (and much more comparative to the eighteen century reality of the world).
The book also becomes even more childish as it approaches more modern periods, while in from the Jacksonian and the Progressive era Zinn was willing to basically list the strikes happening in America (again without contrast to foreign comparisons, British for example), as he tries to explain quickly his views in modern American society his lack of arguments becomes more apparent and the superficiality of his so ambitious work is made more evident. This is also very Marxist rendition of history. Class struggle dominates, and the charming explicative simplicity of Marxist analysis of history is ever present (along with is implied superficiality), along with a good dose of paranoia on the abilities of Big Brother over the centuries. The good and bad guys are so obvious in Zinn's History that all that he could do to make it more so was to dispense white and black hats as the old Westerns did. Why three stars then? Well the book is also very passionate and a very fast read. Although I greatly disagree with the philosophy in it, this is a very clear presentation of it. The very influence of this book and its views on the American historiography and debate makes it a very important read. Those who agree with everything Zinn says really should read more in depth views of history that can greatly challenge this thesis, while those who can't read it at all must open their minds for the incredible value of the questioning (whether at times sophomoric) that Zinn can create.
Rating: 
Summary: No middle ground with this book....
Review: This is an excellent book when looking for the truth about America and it's history. There are many out there that claim that this book is a lot of nonesense. They do not want to look at reality. This country was founded on blood, sweat and tears of amazing men and women. Men and Women who wanted to see their dreams live on, who wanted to be free from the tyranical rule of England. What they dreamed of, is not the reality of America. Our government is all about greed, arrogance and getting more. It does not care who it has to step on to get it. Not even it's own people. This book takes care to note that the America we were striving for did not come to fruition. Jefferson, Adams, Washington all said when it comes to foreign policy stay out of it. We get right in the middle of it. We start wars with countries that just want us to leave them alone. We take money from our poor and give it to our rich. We let people become homeless and sick so that our American Corporations can make another buck by outsourcing our jobs. We do not take care of our old, our sick, and our poor. We think about me, me, me. How can I get more? How can I get better? Not how can I help out! We ALL as a country need to come together and fix the wrongs that have been made. We need to say "No more!" No more to big business, No more to outsourcing, No more to cheap, expendable merchandize, No more to leaving our people in the street to starve and die! NO MORE! If you think that this great country is great, you need to look again. Look at how a new world order is in the making. Look at how we're losing our middle class. Look at how we're losing our freedoms, our privacy, and our right to choose. The direction we're moving in is not the one that I want to go in, and I know if our founding fathers were alive to see this they'd be taking the next boat out to parts unknown. We need to take responsibility for what we have done, what we continue to do, and what we need to do. We need to apologize for stealing this land. We need to apology for having Mrs. Smith's only son Johnny killed in a War we had no business being in. We need to apologize to the middle easterners and get the hell out of their (see that? THEIR) country. We need to stop spending money on surveys and studies on things no one cares about and start spending more money on Education, Medical Costs, Prescriptions, Creating Jobs for our Citizens. We need to pay attention to America and it's people. Zinn points this out every step of the way in his book. THIS IS A MUST READ! This is for the man from the Soviet Union - true Communism is not what you had in the Soviet Union. To say that Marx's doctrin did not pan out in the USSR would be like saying that you used Apples in a Cherry Pie and couldn't understand why it wasn't a Cherry Pie. The USSR called it Communism but it wasn't. It was more of a Dictatorship with some Capitalism thrown in (Yes, I did say Capitalism - if you don't believe me go read some more history).
Rating: 
Summary: There were no "American Masses" in the Colonial Period
Review: The entire text, which I reviewed for a History class when it was first released, is based upon the false assumption that America was a place of "masses of the people" and that some great eglatarian war similar in structure and purpose as that ongoing in Europe was replanted and flourishing in the colonies. For those who believe that communistic ideology has a place in real life and benefits real people, this is a great argument for them and referrence. However, America was not and is not and has not been a "socialist democracy" or a society of equality. America, historically, is a country founded on the essence that individuals have a right to express themselves within certain constraints in a manner that is not necessarily popular or preferred. This individual liberty is what allows our nation to grow and evolve into a nation that is REACHING but has yet to achieve "equality". Often, we forget that Equality is the Goal not the Fact.
Rating:
Summary: If you call this history, I've got a bridge to sell you
Review: I found myself some time ago wanting to read a survey history of The United States. It has been some time since I read Samuel Eliot Morison's The Growth of the American Republic, and I wanted something new. As an experiment, I decided to do a side-by-side reading of two politically charged books - Howard Zinn's A People's History of The United States, and Paul Johnson's A History of the American People. What follows emphasizes Zinn.
Although supposed to represent the liberal viewpoint, I had some reservations about Zinn from the start. The available reviews made some rather explicit charges against Zinn. They are frequently correct, as I discovered. The one thing to emphasize is that Zinn is not liberal, not by a long shot. It took some time to realize what he was, but this book is in fact an explicitly Communist text. Perhaps this accounts for it's many other faults besides the obvious one of ideology.
First of all, the book is labeled as History on the back cover. This is, I think, a typo by the publishing house. Oh, it's related to historical topics, in that Zinn makes references to people and events of the past. But there the resemblance ends. This book has no business masquerading as a survey of history, or as anything else. Each chapter is an essentially self-contained look at some group of people in complete isolation from history. Zinn makes the claim that he is trying to write about the other 99 percent of the people, the ones that don't get mentioned in the regular histories. This claim fails on so many levels. Firstly, his math is atrocious. Zinn would have the reader believe that this percentage of the people in America have known nothing but misery and hardship since day one and continuing right up until now. It took about half the book before Zinn had anything actually positive to say about anyone. That is, of course, unless you count as positive his many claims that American is run by some sort of cabal of clever and well-integrated rich folk who have devised a system for the sole purpose of keeping the people down. This includes a variety of schemes too numerous to mention, right up to an including the greatest fiction of all, that The United States exists as a country. Yes, Zinn actually said this. The founding of the country was just a ploy to keep the mobs in check and prop up the rich classes.
Fear not, happiness seekers. Zinn is not all negative. Once we reach the era of communist labor unions, he perks right up. Not, of course, the other labor unions, only the ones that have a clear and explicit socialist or communist affiliation. There are other moments too. I think the best and most Zinn-like example was his glowingly warm report about the 1971 riots in Attica State Prison. After seizing a prison yard and taking forty guards as hostages, there followed, in Zinn's mind, "Five days in which the prisoners set up a remarkable community in the yard." So, George Washington is evil, but Bubba the rapist/murderer is just a swell guy.
I've drifted away from problems with Zinn that are not based on ideology. He is, however, a remarkably bad historian. He shows no ability to separate the important from the unimportant. The funny thing is that there's nothing wrong writing about the experiences and lives of ordinary people. Many writers have done it well, and I don't hold to any notion of History that says only "great events" and "big names" are important. What makes most other writers more effective than Zinn is that they are actually interested in people's history, not communist propaganda. The people in Zinn are nothing more than means by which to call for a socialist revolution. Yes, Zinn does this too, in chapter 23, "The Coming Revolt of the Guards". He takes a break from even his scant survey of history to make a plea to readers to overthrow the capitalist system. The "guards" are what he calls the middle classes, who are marginally better off, having been thrown a few bones to buy our complacency. This is the chapter where Zinn calls for the return of child labor. Yes, he actually says this, on page 639. "Work of some kind would be needed by everyone, including people now kept out of the work force - children, old people, "handicapped" people." In my review for Johnson's book (remember Johnson, the guy I mentioned up top?), I used the word "surreal" to describe his later chapters. I'll keep that review intact, although I think the word better applies to Zinn's book, in its entirety. Half the time I thought Zinn was drunk when he wrote it, and half the time I thought I was drunk reading it. It was that hard to believe such an illogical, scattered, incoherent, irrelevant piece of trash could make it to paper. I haven't felt this way about a book since reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Zinn's book is bad history, bad writing, and intellectually dishonest.
So to compare to Johnson, no real comparison is possible. They are not flip sides of the same coins, and their sum is not greater than their parts (it is less, actually). Whereas Johnson at least wrote a history book (mostly), Zinn wrote Alice in Americaland. Johnson, also, at least managed to reference his sources. Zinn does not. He apparently hasn't learned that making dramatic claims should require some form of documentation. Alas, there is not a footnote to be found. Some quotes don't even mention the author directly in the text. Sure enough, there is a bibliography, but it's hardly the same. Zinn claims he didn't want to bog down the text. With what? Facts? Justification? I can't recommend Zinn to anyone. There's nothing here worth reading. Period. Stick with Morison.
Rating:
Summary: ALL LIES AND LEFT WING PROPAGANDA
Review: This version of history is nothing but lies and left-wing propaganda! It is intended to mislead you and to promote doubt and mistrust in our government. Don't Read This Book!
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Book
Review: Well researched and well written, this book looks into the not so bright side of the U.S. government. The most shocking thing to me was the mass revolts of prisons in the seventies and the desertions that happened in the Mexican-American War. A true masterpiece, a most read for anyone who is interested in history.
Rating:
Summary: Skewed? No. Necessary? Yes.
Review: History is almost always told from the point of view of the victor. American history (that is, the history taught in K-12) is very guilty of this. All Zinn is simply doing is telling the history of this country from the other side. Is a slaves view of the Constitution skewed? Is the view of a woman working in a textile mill during the rise of industrialism skewed? Are rich, white, male bureaucrats the only ones allowed to write history? Apparently, many people would answer all of these questions with a YES!!! Scarry stuff folks.
Zinn isn't lying here. He's telling the story from a different point of view. As a matter of fact a great deal of this book is taken from people's speeches, soldier's letters, newspaper headlines, etc. The work put into this book is unbelievable!
It's amazing how little of this stuff is taught in school. I mean a kid can graduate high school without knowing anything about the massacre in the Phillipines or the draft riots. If you don't believe me, go find a 17 year old and get yourself proven wrong. No wonder the American public is in such a susceptible state...
So if you want to hear this stuff read the book. If you are uninterested in the complete history of America, don't read it. Whatever you do, please don't refer to this work as skewed.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Important US History Book Ever Written
Review: Although he undoubtedly approaches the history from the left, Zinn's telling of history should also be mandatory for high school students in that it relates the history of this nation as it was experienced by a majority of its people, not through the eyes of politicians, industrialists, and other so-called "important" historical figures.
Ironically, considering all of the vitriol launched at Zinn from the right, Zinn's book represents nothing more than a series of abuses of Americans at the hands of their own government -- a sentiment that so-called "conservatives" should understand if not respect.
Regardless of viewpoints, this book presents the best historical information told by the people who experienced it that you will ever find. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: The best place to find well researched history
Review: Mr. Zinn has given the public one of only a few truth seeking history books. It is quite obvious what little substance children learn in school about history, and they remember even less as they get older. It is a sad state of affairs on such a simple-sounding subject as history when people can never seem to agree upon an event and its causes/effects. Unfortunately Mr. Zinn bravely writes a book to try and set the record straight, but this is shockingly different than what we all learned, so the first thought that comes into people's heads is to insult the author and claim something like revisionist history.
The truth does sound scary. Endless stories of citizens' rights being trampled upon all to protect the wealthy land owner. Even some "freedom loving patriots" who fought for the colonies to be free from rule by a King but later wanted to appoint the President and Congress for life. Also a famous document with the words "all men are created equal" but no mention about women, non-land owning whites, and minorities having less rights than farm animals. These and other touchy topics are covered in this book as well as stories that might make you outraged at the people we were told to idolize as children.
See for yourself the endless line of history books out there; but only a few authors try their hardest to tell the story from the point of view that gets overlooked every single time, the people.
Rating:
Summary: The truth hidden in the shadows
Review: Although heavily politically correct and somewhat biased as such, Zinn still shines light into history's shadows with this gritty portrait, and it's a welcome alternative to the "this is the greatest country in the world, this is how we got here, everything is fine" pablum that we're spoon-fed in public school history classes. From the atrocities inflicted by Columbus to the journalistically-engineered wars for territory and the shameful interning of the Nisei during World War II, "A People's History" is still a must-read for any serious history student. Also recommend Zinn's "Voices of a People's History of the United States."
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