Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. New York: HarperPerennial, 2003.
Reason read: Justice John Jay, former governor of New York, was born in December. Read in his memory.
Zinn sums up A People’s History of the United States perfectly in his first chapter, “My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is different: that we must not accept the memory of the states as our own” (p 10). He is willing to look at the whole truth of our nation, as ugly as it may be. There is a lot of dirt to be dug as Zinn is heavy on the quotes and extensive in his expansive research. But, fear not. This is a not a dry textbook account of our people’s history. Zinn is just as quick to insert humor and small amusements such as, “when a[n] [Iroquois] woman wanted a divorce, she set her husband’s things outside the door” (p 20). Interesting characters from all walks of life grace the pages of Zinn’s extraordinary masterpiece. More than a textbook, this should be on everyone’s reading list…even today.
As an aside, I want to ask Mr. Zinn this one question: could you ever imagine our sorry state of national affairs, as they are today, when you first penned the question “Is it possible for whites and blacks to live together without hatred?” I just have three little words: Say. Their. Names.
Author fact: Zinn lived in Massachusetts at the time A People’s History was published.
Book trivia: most people consider A People’s History of the United States a textbook.
Nancy said: Pearl said people rave about Zinn’s A People’s History and Pearl called it revolutionary.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “American History: Nonfiction” (p 19). As an aside, If you had two chapters called “American History” in the same book and the subtitles were Fiction and Nonfiction, which would come first in an alphabetized book?
~*LunaSea*~ 