A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn

A People's History of the United States

By Howard Zinn

  • Release Date: 2010-01-26
  • Genre: History
Score: 4
4
From 411 Ratings

Description

Since its original landmark publication in 1980, 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 — its citizens. Looking at history “from the bottom up,” historian Howard Zinn shows that many of our country’s greatest battles — for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights and racial equality — were carried out at the grassroots level, often against bloody resistance. From Columbus’s arrival through the 2000 election and the War on Terror, A People’s History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.
Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was a historian, playwright, and activist. He wrote the classic A People’s History of the United States, which has sold more than two million copies and was featured in a documentary on the History Channel. His other writings include the play “Marx in Soho” and his autobiography You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train. He received the Lannan Foundation Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Eugene V. Debs award for his writing and political activism. “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

Reviews

  • A People History

    1
    By FICaz USA
    Complete and utter garbage and nonsense. Left wings nuts will love it as as it verifies their beliefs without a scrap of truth behind it.
  • Very informative; great read

    5
    By godzulu lx
    Very seldom do you come across a book that enlightens you, burdens you, uplifts you, and challenge you all at once. This is an educational trip for those who are proud to be students, ever learning, all the days of their lives.
  • A People's History

    5
    By DLBM7
    Every U. S. citizen should read this book!!!
  • Inaccurate & misleading!

    1
    By Chad M. Hutcheson
    While some of the 'history' in this book is true much of the information is highly misleading and anyone with a high school diploma should be able to realize that much of this is fabricated. If I publish a book and name it (American History:the real truth) and state that George Washington was really an alien spy most who gave this a five star rating would agree with me, and the while this is a sad fact it does not make it true. Simply believing something does not make your beliefs the reality if you put those beliefs into print.
  • Terrible

    1
    By Someone2153
    The whole point of this book is pointing out the flaws in America and saying why it is the most oppressive country it focuses on a lot of Christopher Columbus correct? Well Christopher Columbus never even landed in the United States and it focuses on Portugal and the Spanish when they came here 150 years before the United States this book is not credible at all many historians have proven Howard to be wrong
  • 😩😫😭😴😠😡

    1
    By Dominiqueeeeeeeeeeee
    Worst book I have ever read in my life! It made me want to kill myself 😩
  • One Trick Pony

    1
    By sweetspacemonkey
    This books gets old really quickly. Everything is some sort of war of imperialism including -- US entry into WWII and liberation of Western Europe. This is when I really lost it. How blind and dogmatic do you have to be to try a one size fits all approach to history. Give me a break and get you head out of your...
  • Fantastic book, awful audiobook

    1
    By RcrdNnnz
    I purchased the audiobook to help me because I have a visual processing disability. I was disappointed to find that the audiobook reads only the latter part of the book. I’ve had to hire someone to read me the first part, and for that reason I’m rating it low.
  • It's simply not sound.

    1
    By BenGilstrap
    There are 2 kinds of historians: those who think leaders lead and those who think the masses lead. Zinn is one of the latter. He went to the archive with the presupposition that the masses are the driving force of history, and that's what he found. He told a monolithically left-wing academic establishment exactly what they wanted to hear in the 80s, and they still love the sound of it today. But it's not sound history because no matter how much he may want ordinary people to drive historical causation, the ordinary must be lead by the extraordinary. Simply put, nothing happens until the big names get on board and thaw the lead.
  • If you want to see what the communists thought...

    1
    By alec *ad*****
    then read this book. This guy finds a way to attack the US and capitalism on every page.