A People's History of the United States

library hold ran out - will be checking out again!

Not going to lie that there is some value in taking the perspective of those who are not mentioned often in the history textbooks and I'm not going to discredit the fact that this book plainly states that it has a thesis that will bias the book as a whole.

But the fault lies in the fact that the book is propaganda - obfuscating facts and never painting a nuanced picture of a situation or a person as a whole. It goes out of its way to only state the bad things that every President does, and when it does concede that there is some good, it does so in passing only to have more negative things to say. At this point, it is not interested in telling facts - it is interested in telling ideology as to why America is bad, inherently evil, and not hearing any debates as to what may be a good rebuttal. It is binary in the fact that if you do not agree with what he is saying: you are either on the right side of history or on the side of oppressors.

The fact is, that I agree with what a lot of the book is saying. But the book is so relentless and aggressive with what it says and tries to paint anyone in the government as a dictator that I cannot advocate for this book.

A must-read for anyone interested in multiple points of view regarding the history of the United States.
Depressing and eye-opening at the same time.

This is the most important book I read all year. If you're gonna read any book on this list, read this one. This shows history not from the viewpoint of those in power, but those who have fought and died helping the people. I cannot speak more highly for this book.

Highly Recommend

It's absolutely a one sided book, but its told from the side that rarely gets its full story told in our modern capital driven society

এইবছর পড়া সবচেয়ে ভালো বইগুলোর একটা। আমেরিকার ইতিহাস আমি পড়েছি বিচ্ছিন্নভাবে, আলাদা সময়ের কথা আলাদা ভাবে এবং তার সবটাই যাকে বলা যায় ‘বিজয়ীর ইতিহাস'। সাধারণ মানুষের ইতিহাস শুধু আমেরিকা না, সবদেশেই, সবকালেই অপ্রতুল।

আমার মনে হয় না এই বইটায় আমেরিকাকে ডিফেইম করা হয়েছে (যে যুক্তিতে অনেকে খারাপ রেটিং দিয়েছে বইটির)। আমার বরং মনে হয়েছে কনজারভেটিভ ও পাঁতি-কনজারভেটিভরা (ডেমক্র্যাট) যখন কনজারভেটিভ ও ক্যাপিটালিস্ট স্বার্থরক্ষায় ব্যস্ত সাধারণ মানুষ বরং প্রোগ্রেসিভ অ্যাটিটিউড দেখিয়েছে। সেটা বর্ণবাদ, নারী-স্বাধীনতা, সোশ্যাল সিকিউরিটি, প্যাসিফিস্ট মুভমেন্টস্ যেটাই হোক। রেড ইন্ডিয়ানরা এক্সটিন্ট হতে দেয়নি নিজেদের, কালারড্ মানুষেরা অধিকারের জন্য লড়ে যাচ্ছে। নির্মম অত্যাচারের মধ্যেও শ্রমিক ও কৃষকেরা আন্দোলন করেছে আবার একটা গাছকে বাঁচাবার জন্য পিটিশনও জমা দিয়েছে। ন্যাশনালিটির ক্রেজে যেমন ভুগেছে, প্রবল ন্যাশনালিটির ক্রেজের ভেতরেও প্যাসিফিস্ট ডেমোন্স্ট্রেশন চলেছে।

In many ways, this is not my typical five-star review. The People's History of the United States is tedious, repetitive, and an overall slog to get through. Though so much of the information provided is wholly interesting, some of the Zinn's examples are merely empty fodder and these cause the already long book to slow. Zinn was anti-oppression, and this means that sometimes he seems pro-whatever-is-being-oppressed, though I don't think this is always the case. For instance, it's easy to surmise from the many examples that Zinn is pro-socialist, but I'm not entirely sure that's true. Certainly, he backed the socialist stance when it was the voice that was being oppressed. And certainly, of the major forms of government, Zinn likely felt the most affinity with socialism. But in later chapters as well as in the conclusion, it seems that Zinn acknowledges that socialism is also a broken system—a step forward, but not the solution. Additionally, Zinn's anti-oppression position means that he sometimes illustrates a part of history from an angle that obscures some bit of inconvenient truth. This is unfortunate, because it gives the naysayers cause to spit on this book and declare it “communist propaganda” (or whatever the taboo phrase of the day is). These moments are few and far between and majority of this book is quite historically accurate, in my layman's opinion.

The People's History of the United States was also difficult for me to get through because I've long studied this history and I already knew the more major events covered in this book. Perhaps many of those other narratives I've read owe their information to Zinn, but having come to this book later in my journey, I found much of the story to be old news. That's not to say Zinn doesn't provide considerable history I have not come across in my previous studies. In fact, what Zinn most convinced me of was how so many of these events that I thought were motivated by various reasons primarily (perhaps exclusively) came about because of money.

The reason The People's History of the United States deserves a five-star rating is because, though it's not an enjoyable read, it is such a immense labor of love and passion for the subject. Zinn put his heart and mind into every page of this book and it shows. Even so, I was tempted to slap four stars on this book and move on until I came to Zinn's afterword. Prior to this, Zinn had merely provided over six-hundred pages of dry facts without much commentary or call-to-action. Here, in these final pages, Zinn stirred my emotions. He took all the information he'd provided and agitated it within me and said, “now what are you going to do?” It was an effective challenge.

The People's History of the United States is the kind of book that is difficult to read straight through. Did I learn some things? Absolutely. But so much of what I learned has already sifted straight through my brain. This is the sort of book one who is passionate about the subject should own. It is the kind of book one should keep handy in case someone is eager to argue about the perfection of the state. It is the kind of book that should be picked up from time to time and serve as a reminder to the people of their history and the vicious circle that has been built up around them, keeping them caged for over five hundred years.

I'm really glad that I read this book, as I appreciate the overview of American history through a lens of how it affected the poor and marginalized. It was a dense book, full of information; I had to borrow it from the library 4 or 5 times to finish it.

What a perfect PERFECT book.

Three things:
1. I hate Christopher Columbus!
2. Zinn is obviously a socialist
3. The book is eye-opening and simply amazing.

Depressing.