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

Great Debates
1

I’m a liberal and I have heard about this book for years. Now I know it has certain truths about this country that you will not find in your typical high school history book. But I am just wondering how much to believe.

There are plenty of positive reviews on Amazon. Here is one of the negative ones-

In short summary, this book is basically propaganda and should be renamed “All rich people must die.” But let me get into the details.

This book actually starts off really great! Zinn starts out warning the reader he will not be taking a neutral stance and says he will view history only from the oppressed. He then starts off doing just that, watching the invasion of the Americas from the point of view of the natives, the revolution from the poor, slavery from those enslaved, etc etc etc. All good stuff, and I really enjoyed these parts. It was a great look into all the atrocities that have been dealt in the name of civilization, and a fresh remainder of the human cost to get us where we are today. It was also a solid reminder that just because something is law, or generally accepted, doesn’t mean it is right, and we need to constantly challenge our perspectives.

But then, something really sinister happened. Zinn slowly but surely slid this book from a history of the oppressed to outright propaganda against anyone rich and anything capitalist.

It starts slowly, around the point where the poor felt taken advantage of by the rich as America was being colonized. My BS meter started ringing as I noted how Zinn would change how he described the poor and the rich. The poor were always broken down into individuals, with history and struggles aplenty, and there transgressions against each other deflected to others. Meanwhile, the rich and powerful were always described in blocks, as one mass thinking-breathing unit that plotted and schemed to keep the poor down. Let me provide some examples of both.

Apparently, according to Zinn, poor whites only discriminated against blacks because the rich told them to. Apparently, according to Zinn, poor whites invading Indian land was only due to rich people forcing them to. Apparently, according to Zinn, non-land owning whites were only given the right to vote so the rich could keep exploiting them. Apparently, according to Zinn, all the reforms passed to give workers the right to vote around the 1900 mark was only down so to stop the poor from rioting so the rich could continue exploiting everyone. Apparently, according to Zinn, everything any rich or powerful person ever did in their life was done as a concentrated act of evil to hurt those without money.

Should I read this book, I have read plenty of other books and seen documentaries about the massacre of the native Americans, or slavery in this country, or this mistreatment of immigrants, on and on. Does this book have anything new to add, more importantly, does the critcial review I quoted above have some truth?

I think what that reviewer I quoted about was saying Zinn was a classic Marxist. Was he?

2

WAG? The reviewer was rich.

3

Let me rephrase the question, to make it more clear. All I am really asking is I should read this book as an acutal factual history, albeit biased from a very liberal perspective, or should I read it as if it where “Lenin’s (or Mao’s) History of the United States”?

I read a similar book, Oliver Stone’s An Untold History of the United States, saw the doucumentary, as I am now watching the documentary of Zinn, the reason I am writing this. Well, fucking Oliver Stone, with his ridiculous JFK, so full of fucking bullshit it floats, or sinks, I don’t know what a load of bullshit does to a ship. Is Zinn another Stone?

4

There are many articles out there that go over the various factual errors and distortions in the book regarding specific historical events. The more global problems are twofold: As you identify, it is written from a Marxist perspective in a fundamental sense. By this I don’t mean the fact that it comes to Marxist conclusions about what the role of the state should be, but rather than it adopts the more elementary Marxist axiom that economics is the only real motivating factor in human behavior and world history. No one in Zinn’s cosmology ever does anything because of culture, psychology, lack of access to the kind of knowledge we have in the present day, genuine disagreement about values, or free will - everything is just a transparent excuse for economic motivations. As anyone who has functioned in the world knows, this is the kind of willfully blind oversimplification that leads to hammering square pegs into round holes as a full-time endeavor.

It also is a series of disjointed screeds about whatever topics Zinn felt like covering; there’s no unity or comprehensiveness to it. It makes for a much better “countervailing view” to a real history textbook than a main source for an American history class itself. Hipster teachers who use it as their class’s main resource end up teaching a very patchy and incoherent version of American history.

5

Well thanks for that, and that type of response is the reason for the OP, and I will not be reading the book. It is not a history book, it is a Marxist Philosopical Interpretation of American History book. Does it come in little red binded editions?

I am going a little bit overboard here. I know Zinn means well, and I agree with him in a general way, but I also agree with Robiespierre, philosophically.

6

Zinn provides a different perspective on the events that formed the US. That’s the purpose of most history books.

Basing the narrative on economics rather than religion or politics makes a lot of sense. He filled in some gaps for me. It was an interesting read with a valuable point of view.

7

I had much the same question about 20 years ago when I went through a phase of reading a lot of early American history books. My recollection is that Zinn focuses on an important aspect of history that many books minimize or ignore. As such it is a welcome addition to the overall body of history, even if it’s slanted more than most well-respected authors. I didn’t read it, though; it was too long compared to other good books.

8

Years ago as a college freshman, my political science professor told be something that seems fairly obvious now, but seem profound at the time. He noted that (paraphrasing):

“Every author, from journalists in newspapers to history writers and novelists and the like have an agenda and marshal their narratives accordingly. If you haven’t figured out what that narrative is a quarter of the way into their work, stop, go to the beginning and start again. Only then do you have a chance of forming your own opinion”

Having said that, I enjoyed Zinn’s book. He’s a populist, it’s very evident, and I read it knowing that.
I agreed with some, disagreed with other information. It’s not the end all, but no book every is.

9

I once tried to read it, but after a few chapters I laid it aside and haven’t gotten back to it; and I think this is why.

10

Why don’t you just read it and form your own opinions? How are you harmed if you read it and it turns out it is Marxist revisionist history?

11

Zinn’s book is not revisionist. As the title states, it is our history from the point of view of the people - not the rulers. So, Unions, civil rights, race and social class are among the topics covered because they are the issues of the people. Issues that, by nature, coincide with those addressed by Marx, but that does not make them Marxist.

12

If all you needed was a single random person on the internet to tell you “Zinn’s book is Marxism!” so you could declare that you refuse to read it, I question whether you really were interested in the content anyway.

You ask “I’m wondering how much to believe” about the content in his book. I haven’t read it, but maybe you’re looking for examples of lies? As others have posted in this thread, having a perspective, even a strong one, is not a reason for dismissing a particular telling of history. In fact, Part of the point of People’s History is that traditional texts all had strong biases and narrow points of view. Zinn presents another perspective, equally useful.

Here’s an interesting critique of the book, in which the author claims:

Zinn’s book was an important contribution when first published. While the standard textbooks of that time presented a certainty about one view of the nation’s history, from Manifest Destiny to the United States’ moral superiority in the Cold War, Zinn put forward largely overlooked alternative perspectives, such as how slaves viewed the Constitution and how the Cherokees felt about President Andrew Jackson. Zinn weaved a seamless unified theory of oppression in which the rich and powerful afflict the poor and disenfranchised.
Over time, however, a problem emerged as Zinn’s book became the single authoritative source of history for so many Americans, Wineburg said. In substituting one buttoned-up interpretation of the past for another, Wineburg finds, A People’s History and traditional textbooks are mirror images that relegate students to similar roles as absorbers – not analysts – of information.

On what criteria are you basing your decision to avoid this book?

(And, as an aside, the random review you quoted from Amazon is worth the paper it was printed on.)

13

“The only human waste is waste of time.”

14

I haven’t read the book. But I did sit next to Howard in conversational French class. Just thought you should know.

15

Zinn was very clear and upfront about what he was doing. The complaint in the review in the OP about lumping the rich and powerful was intentional and spelled out in the intro. Most history books only individualize powerful, while the weak are undifferentiated.

Reading Zinn in a vacuum would give you a skewed view of history. But so would reading an approved history book in a Texas high school.

If you really want to know what Zinn is trying to do and if you want to read it, I recommend reading the intro and the chapter titled The Coming Change of the Guard (sorry don’t remember the chapter number). Those two lay out his goals and methods. Simple summary:

  • Provide a perspective based on the unrepresented peoples who get either left out or lumped over in other U.S. history text books

  • Inspire current young people to take action to create a new more equitable society/economy.

16

I didn’t need that one person’s opinion to tell me not to read the book. I asked here if that was a valid opinion of the book, and from some responses I think it is. If I were to ask my anarcho-syndicalist friend if I should read it, I have no doubt he would say Hell Yes. On Amazon the reviews are mostly very positive. I created a thread asking what anarcho-syndicalist means, I still have no idea what it would mean in a real world, real country situation.

I could do that. I just don’t want to spend that much time on it. To decide if this book, of the thousands of books on American history that have been written , is it worth reading, and if I will learn something from it. Too many books to read, too little time. I know a lot of it will point out things that aren’t in most high school history books. I just read an article a friend of mine of Facebook posted about high school textbooks in Virginia, that, to to this day, talk about Black Confederate soldiers, fighting to defend their beaututiful homeland.

But I already know the myth of the War of Northern Aggresssion. I don’t need to read the book to find out the many atrocities that have been commited by this US government. But to parphrase Churchill, the American system of government is the worst system of government, until you compare it to the other systems of government."

As Bonesera said the in opening scence in The Godfather. "I believe in America. " Our “last best hope” for a “shining city on a hill” with a “thousand points of light”. I still try to believe that, getting less and less confident every day.

17

How much do you know about the history of labor unions in our country, and the specifics of the violence employed against them? What do you know about late-nineteenth-century populist parties, and especially about the Fusion Party? What do you know about the Wilmington race murders of 1898 and the political coup–the only successful violent coup in our nation’s history–that followed?

It’s interesting that the review doesn’t dispute the factual accuracy of the book, but rather that it’s too mean to rich people. Rich people, I figure, can take it.

18

And yet, in your OP you asked if you should read the book, and based on a single response, you declared that you will not read the book.

Again, I’m not sure what you are expecting out of your history texts. You say you want help to:

I’m curious, on what basis do have you decided that this book is “Mao’s History of the United States,” what does that even mean, and how does that fact lead you to conclude that it’s a book of lies and so not worth learning from?

I think it’s fair to say that yes, you would learn a lot from this book. You might not agree with all the conclusions, but you’ll learn a lot.

Obviously, you have no obligation to read anything you don’t want to. I don’t take issue with that. But your initial question is poorly thought out, and taking a random and clearly irrational Amazon review with its own obvious lies and biases as a starting point for your inquiry, and then concluding that inquiry after one person backs up that review shows . . . poor reasoning and analysis skills. Maybe spending some real time actively trying to learn from new perspectives (take Zinn, perhaps) might help you develop those skills.

19

I know about all of that. Not the Wilmington race riots specifically, but I know about lynching of blacks who had the freedom to vote after the Civil War and who were murdered for trying to do so. Or for looking, literally looking, at a white woman. I know that in the first couple of years after the war that many blacks were elected to Congress, and then the southern states decided that they had do do something about that shit, and started to suppress the vote . I know all about the suppression of the labor movement, having read Emma Goldman’s autobiography and seen documentaries about her and the labor movement and read many books of 20th century history. I know all the factual things that Zinn enumerates in his book.

The reason I was interested in Zinn’s book was to add even more examples to what I already know.

And one reason was, I just got laid off from my job here in NJ, and I will be moving back to my hometown of Virginia for a while. And once I am there, I will encounter Trump supporters, friends and family. I will try to not to get into arguments, but I thought that if I did, I might find other things that I could mention. I was just wondering if by reading Zinn’s book I could find other examples of why I am a progressive. But now I think, Why? If they support Trump, NO argument of ANY kind, not matter how logical and fact-based it is, will make any difference.

20

What are these irrational points from that review? Remember, in the OP I was asking if they were valid.

One example-

Apparently, according to Zinn, poor whites only discriminated against blacks because the rich told them to. Apparently, according to Zinn, poor whites invading Indian land was only due to rich people forcing them to.

Maybe that is true. Is that what the book said, or is that what the reviewer perceived the book as saying. Now you are right that after one poster agreed with the Amazon reviewer, I decided not to read the book. That is because there are thousands of books out there I don’t have the time to read. My “Mao’s History of the United States” was hyberolic. I never fucking learn, I say shit that I think people will take as an obvious joke, and they take me seriously.

I did say this.