Consistently lauded for its lively, readable prose, this revised and updated edition of A People's History of the United States turns traditional textbook history on its head. Howard Zinn infuses the often-submerged voices of blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers of all nationalities into this thorough narrative that spans American history from Christopher Columbus's arrival to an afterword on the Clinton presidency.

Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher, historian, and social activist for more than 20 years--explains, "My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)--that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."

An OK read

The book was somewhat interesting even though I have nothing in common with Zinn's political and cultural ideology. This book is a perfect example of the somewhat ignorant way that many historians apply 20th century morality to events that happened hundreds of years ago. Unfortunately, pushing his political views are more important to him than portraying accurate unbiased history.

A People's History Of The United States...

This book is a MUST. It is chilling, terrifying, enriching, and life-changing. Zinn is a master and a legend.

Great book, but not without problems

As a high school history teacher, it gets tiresome to always here about how 'it's a shame that we didn't learn about this in school' and 'all we were fed is pro-America propaganda.' My students, yes 17-year olds, come to me not knowing where the state of North Carolina is on the map, what a capitalist is, or even the meaning of 'labor union' or 'strike.' On top of it all, they don't know the difference between B.C., A.D., C.E., or whatever. They can't even tell me how many years have passed since 1865 without laborious calculations. I am expected somehow to instill some sense of the grand sweep of American history in less than 180 hrs. of instruction and still include all of the events that Zinn says it is a tragedy not to include. I agree with Zinn that these are important events and that there are underlying currents in American history that are often left out. However, we need to be realistic. The fact that there was a revolt of renters on the Hudson River in the 1830s and 1840s is somewhat useless if you don't know where the Hudson River is.
Also, the repeated refrain that Zinn's work is somehow new or enlightening gets old quickly. This type of history is the only type that university professors, the ones who write most history books, do anymore. By the way, this has been the case for the past 30 years at least. Oh yeah, and high school text books have been incorporating stories of the oppressed for almost as long. Perhaps the fact that my school is 90% African-American and in a poor neighborhood helps me bring out those less-than-attractive aspects of US History, but in my experience most history teachers no matter where they work are at least slightly left-leaning and don't mind telling the whole truth about America.
Zinn's work was an interesting and enriching read if you already have some concept of the basic chronology of events in American history. Otherwise it will be confusing. While I don't totally agree with his overall message, the picture he paints of American history is important. Just save us the attitude of indignation and self-importance. It's irrelevant and annoying.