Reviews - A People's History of the United States

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A People's History of the United States

"'The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is.' I don't want to invent victories of the people's movement, but to think that history writing was deigned to recapitulate the failures that dominate the past is to make historians and collaborators in an endless cycle of defeat. If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past, when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win."

"It is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance. That makes it a biased account, one that leans in a certain direction. I am not troubled by that because the mountain of history book under which we all stand leans so heavily the other direction, so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful by inattention to people's movement that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission."

While Zinn did very clearly state his thesis over and over again, I still walked away feeling irked by this book. I did learn a lot and many good points were raised, but anyone who is going to celebrate folks setting themselves on fire . While the founding fathers have many issues surrounding them, these folks are not America's saviors either. In fact, I really can't imagine anything stupider, more selfish, and less helpful to humanity. Zinn made sure all these names were accounted for, a here in his books. He may be being intentionally obnoxious about this since he is so adamant for an unapologetic retelling that disrespects governments, and I guess he accomplished his intentions. This made me question throughout though if many of these people he celebrated throughout the book were of similar vain. It wants so badly to be a Communist Manifesto, but not sure that is really what we need.

The book was very long and thorough in most parts...I really enjoyed the in depth retelling of the Philippines, for example, but there were also large omissions and sparse discussion of many relevant histories, particularly in Africa and South America. There is virtually no mention of the War on Drugs, the U.S. interference of Costa Rica and their agriculture, the Banana Massacre, U.S. support of dictators like Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, etc. Why?

This led me to believe that much of the book was rather cherry-picked and poorly edited throughout, an egregious error for such a long book. In the end, I am glad I read it, but there are many other books I would recommend (for example, <i>Stamped from the Beginning</i> for a more honest and unapologetic retelling of Black history).

acjudson's review

4.25

informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

wright_rendon_reads's review against another edition

5.0

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

tmadryga's review against another edition

4.5

challenging informative slow-paced

Lots of information and it sometimes jumps around a bit, but this is an important book for everyone to read to get a look at a different side to history.

sofibatt's review

5.0

dark informative reflective medium-paced

eamaciejewski's review

4.0

I listened to the abridged version (hey Matt Damon) and loved it. Learned some things that were very much glossed over in my history classes. Especially liked learning about the domestic response to the Vietnam War.