People\'s History of the United

¶ … People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn's 1980 publication a People's History of the United States offers an alternative perspective on American history. Rather than provide only the point-of-view of the victors as many traditional history books do, Zinn lends insight into the point-of-view of the vanquished groups such as the Native Americans, the African-Americans, the political dissenters, and women. Zinn's book also addresses incidents in American history that are usually underreported or not emphasized in most history courses, such as his thorough analysis of the counterculture movement and social rebellion of the 1960s and 1970s. A People's History of the United States shows that not all in American history has been honorable, and therefore the book is valuable in dispelling the illusory idealized version of American history often propounded.

Amazingly, Zinn presents his people's history without bias. As a historian, the author offers readers the facts. However, by presenting material that is often left out of textbooks, Zinn allows readers to form a more complete picture of American history. For example, instead of focusing on the persona of war generals like Grant and Lee in his chapter on the Civil War, Zinn tells the story about ordinary class struggles that lie beneath the Civil War. Chapter 10: "The Other Civil War" includes a wealth of information pertaining to poverty in America and the class conflicts that influenced history as much as battle tactics did.

People's History of the United States is in fact organized like a textbook: without introduction or conclusion, the book contains twenty-one chapters organized in chronological order. The material begins with a chapter on "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress," and proceeds through revolutionary times, the Civil War, the World Wars, and Vietnam. As a people's history, Zinn delves into social trends such as racism and religious revivalism, to show how important ordinary lives of Americans are in shaping large-scale events.

Zinn presents plenty of detailed information about the daily lives of ordinary people, especially the disenfranchised. While most history textbooks tell stories from the perspective of the wealthy and powerful, Zinn shows how things happened from the perspective of the powerless. For example, in Chapter 3: "Persons of Mean and Vile Condition," the author focuses on poor whites, blacks, and Native Americans, and their "unfair treatment by the wealthier classes," (50). Zinn also demonstrates throughout a People's History of the United States how racism and bigotry became institutionalized and acceptable practices, and critiques colonial America as being definitively "feudal" in nature (48).

People's History of America exposes the dark side of American politics throughout the history of the nation, not aggrandizing or idealizing typical heroes and founding fathers like most history books do. For example, Zinn shows how men like Alexander Hamilton were overtly concerned with preserving elitist privilege in American politics and went out of their ways to ignore dissenting voices. The elitist culture of early America shaped the evolution of the nation, according to Zinn.