A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present Book

Average Rating:

I agree with another reviewer that for the educated, whether liberal or conservative, this is a very valuable outlook on American history. It's not often I find myself outraged by a book, and the next chapter somewhat introspective as to how my views are understood by minorities such as Native Americans, blacks, and women. But if you are looking to start an investigation of American history and our political past, either skip this till you've read more or be sure you've got other quality books on your list that provide a more mainstream view.

Every book should be read with an eye on the agenda of the author, and this is just another example of such a work.

.....but.....the most important thing this book will teach you is how important it is to question the history you have always been taught. History is not just a retelling of facts - it is an active choice by the historian of which facts are important. Zinn purposely commits the sin of omission in telling this history of America - but he's honest about that. ALL historians, even if not by intent, make a statement through the stories they choose to tell.

A worthwhile investment of time to anyone who is interested in how our history is chosen and told, but only those with an open mind about the overall concepts of historiography.

He notes that African societies also had slaves. But their systems were like European serfdom. Slaves could marry into their masters family, own property, testify in court. All in societies more egalitarian and with women considerably more empowered than in European societies. In contrast to the race-based chattel slavery peculiar to the Americas.

Zinn's overriding point in this book is that class warfare is as During the revolutionary war there was continuing riots of the poor over the profiteering of merchants and the impressment of poor people into the army (the rich could get out by paying a few hundred dollars for a substitute).

The constitution was written by the wealthy minority of the country, he points out, who devised a very strong central government. He quotes James Madison explaining in Federalist paper #10 that the constitution aimed to eliminate factional strife and he listed the principle causes of such strife: demands for redistribution of land held by the wealthy elite, the issuing of paper money to pay off debts and any other "improper and wicked object."

He writes about Andrew Jackson from the point of view of the southern Indians whom he helped drive off by encouraging terror against them and a lust for new land by speculators. He notes the case of Samuel Worcester and his missionary colleagues who were sentenced to hard labor by the state of Georgia for supporting the rights of the Cherokees, with Jackson refusing to enforce the ruling of the Supreme court saying that the arrest of Worcester & co. violated the Indian treaties. This in contrast to Jackson's attacks on South Carolina for refusing to accept a federal tarrif, an episode that so engrosses modern historians.

He writes interestingly that the populist movement was a complex movement. A multi-racial political machine actually elected blacks and whites locally in East Texas in the 1890's before being destroyed by white supremacist terror. Texas and Arkansas and Georgia populists actually tried to be multi-racial; for instance the 1896 Georgia populist party platform condemned lynching even while populists in the Georgia legislature were passing waves of anti-black legislation.

He gives an interesting statistic about the Spanish-American war. Only about 380 of 5,000 plus deaths of American soldiers during the war died in combat. The rest were subjected to bad living conditions, having to use food and other resources of bad quality sold by contractors to the government at hugely inflated prices. He notes government reports about food poisoning in soldier's food. Far from the first time he shows. He gives the example of J.P. Morgan during the Civil War making a fortune selling defective guns at inflated prices that he gotten from the army back to the army, and resulted in many soldiers getting maimed. He quotes the reports of soldiers, journalists and others from that war of the mass atrocities, mass tortures and the extreme racism of that war fought to "civilize" the filipinos. He notes that labor was initially uneasy about the war before it began. He quotes an International Machinists union journal writer who pointed out that at about the time the U.S.S. Maine was mysteriously blown up and much anguish in the American media followed, massacres of American workers like the 18 protesting miners who were gunned down in Pennslyvania after refusing to disperse for police, elicited no noticeable outrage.

The "progress" made by Industrialization he points was not shared with the majority of Americans. He notes that while many immigrants came to America during this period, many of them would leave. Agitation during the "progressive" era compelled tiny reforms and tokenism by the white supremacist Theodore Roosevelt. Socialists picked up as much of a third of the votes in places like Chicago and New York in 1917. The IWW was at the height of its influence. He quotes the Committee on Industrial relations that 35,000 people were killed and 700,000 injured at work in 1914 alone. In the 1920's during the "Jazz age" there were about 25,000 workers killed and 100,000 permanently disabled annualy, he writes. He notes that in this great period, supposedly stimulated by 1923 tax cuts for the rich, 42 percent of families made less than a 1,000 dollars a year. 1/10 of one percent of the top one percent of families owned as much wealth as the bottom 42 percent. He quotes letters of people to congressman Fiorello Laguardia of people expressing the anguish of barely surviving from day to day.

The New Deal, he writes, was designed only to stabilize the capitalist system. Roosevelt was against the Wagner bill granting basic rights to workers until the strikes in Minneapolis and San Francisco in late 1934 made passing the bill necessary for stability. He points out that 9 million people were still unemployed in 1938. There were 4 million unemployed at the end of the last economic slump back in 1921.