Customer Reviews

A People's History of the United States, Teaching Edition

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It doesn't matter how boring you thought history was when you were in school, after reading Zinn's book you will see US history through different eyes. This book looks at US history through the eyes of its victims: Indians, slaves, laborers, women, immigrants, soldiers, the labor movement, pacifists, etc. You don't understand this country today until you understand how we got here.

Unlike the reader from Cal Berkeley, I am willing to give my name, Dan Krejci, my location, Boise, Idaho, and that as a graduate student in history I have found Howard Zinn's fabulous textbook a great asset to both my research and my pedagogy. This is the textbook that Todd Gitlin, Gary Nash, and myself have been looking for as a guiding light to a history curriculum that will embrace American multiculturalism and demystify the antiquated Bancroftian historiography that perpetuates old myths rather than deal with new realities. Zinn's history is a small step for humankind and a giant step away from Rankean orthodoxy. Zinn's book is a cry for a rejuvenation of our discipline where interdisciplinary studies are paralleling the pluralism that makes up American values and style and need to be addressed in both the classroom and the boardroom.

Zinn's book is an essential antidote to the standard histories that glorify the elites and ignore the working people and all of the other folks who have been trampled on during our history. I highly recommend the abridged edition for use in classes -- it contains the same analysis with fewer supporting examples, and is thus easier for students to get through.

It's history from the eyes of all others except the people who call the shots--those top 2% of the population. It is history as we should know it, to understand all of us, and to make real progress for changing our shadowy and often unjust past.

If we study history we will learn what mistakes not to make for the future.

According to James W. Loewen's, "Lies My Teacher Told Me," students consider history "the most irrelevant" of twenty-one subjects taught in high school. Whether you graduated last year or sixteen years ago, like myself, the history textbooks used today are just as boring as the ones we used in high school. Howard Zinn's, "A People's History Of The United States," enthusiatically replaces the orthodox form of teaching history (the rote memorization of names, dates, and places) by embracing the revisionist form of teaching history, which will inspire students to critically think and promote life-long learning, rather than bored to tears in-class sleepers. Zinn's approach to history shows his readers that there is a connection between the past, the present, and the future. His revisionist approach takes on a more Einsteinian paradigm (that everything is relative) rather than the traditional Newtonian paradigm (how can a social science be a pure science?). This approach allows the students to analyze and develop the underlying relationships in historical events in an effort to help us and them solve future problems. Students deserve to know the truth. They need to know the real reason why someone in their right mind would sail of the edge of the world-the spice surely was not nutmeg. They need to know how Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Vanderbilt became so rich and famous-their fortunes were built from the backs of cheap and exploited immigrant labor. In a nutshell, Zinn in his sometimes humorous and always vernacular way makes history interesting, and dare I say? FUN.

I am a long time fan of this book but, unfortunately, in this edition (97) the index does not match the abridged text. I was forced to order the 1995 version directly from the publisher for use in my class room.

Loved the book. It was as advertised, as always is on Amazon. Been buying from Amazon for a long time, many presents, never hesitate to trust them.

To those who will read this review: this review was written specifically for the "Abridged Teaching Edition", which is rather different from the full version in both length and content. The type is bigger, the chapters are smaller (thus "abridged"), and at the end of each there is a section of rather simplistic discussion questions (whose idea was this?).

I completely agree with Zinn's thesis, but can't say the same about his approach. This history book is divided into episodic chapters, the only link being their arrangement in chronological order. Some chapters take the detailed, small scale approach, while others aim at the grand scale and describe "general trends" in rather vague terms. In other words, the only logical way to read this book with the goal of learning something is either to read it as a supplement to another text, or already possessing a rich store of knowledge on the subject.

In his approach Zinn reduces every subject into a flat, two-dimensional semblance that reflects his opinion - and he does a fairly good job of engineering everything to fit his opinion. And since his thesis is to focus on the oppressed and the neglected, you should get ready for some really grim history. Nevertheless, there are a few chapters where he seemingly forgets to add the "grimness filter", and what the reader ends up reading is vague, abstract history (as in "Tyranny Is Tyranny").

The idea of adding a questions section to Zinn's book seems laughable and absurd, but, alas, it's there. THESE "QUESTIONS" ARE ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC! They follow the course of the chapter, most of them simply repeating various sentences in question form!

A moderately interesting history book that was deeply hurt by abridgement.

If anything, Zinn's courageous book, is too nice to the bloody history of the european invasion in the americas. As it is a courageous work, it takes a courageous mind to accept as fact the atrocities the USA was built upon. To those with a mind open enough to seek out the TRUTH, whatever it may be, however horrible it may be, this well written and more than fair book will be a beacon on your journey. -Za'el

This book is a catalog of every negative event relating to American history, described from a neo-Marxist perspective. Zinn argues that it is necessary to focus solely upon the negative to balance the "patriotic" history taught in schools; however, as a recent product of the public school system, I was made well aware of the horrors of slavery, the Native American genocide, and other atrocities (alongside positive developments). I have concerns about the judgment of an individual who writes, in 1997: "In an economic system not rationally planned for human need, but developing fitfully, chaotically out of the profit motive, there seemed to be no way to avoid recurrent booms and slumps." By repeating the longstanding Marxist mantra regarding crises, he makes it apparent that he has no understanding of the events of the last decade. Zinn's style is breezy and accessible--he is an excellent advocate, but one whose complete lack of balance is unsettli! ! ng.