A People's History of the United States
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A People's History of the United States is a nonfiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn, in which he seeks to present U.S. history through the eyes of groups he says are rarely heard in mainstream histories. A People's History, though originally a dissident work, has become a major success and was a runner-up in 1980 for the National Book Award. A People's History has been adopted for reading in some high schools and colleges across the United States and has been frequently revised. The most recent edition covers events through 2003. In 2003, Zinn was awarded the Prix des Amis du Monde Diplomatique for the French version of this book, Une histoire populaire des Etats-Unis.[1]
A reviewer for the The New York Times suggested the book should be "required reading" for students.[2]
In a 1998 interview prior to a speaking engagement at the University of Georgia, Zinn told Catherine Parayre he had set "quiet revolution" as his goal for writing A People's History. "Not a revolution in the classical sense of a seizure of power, but rather from people beginning to take power from within the institutions. In the workplace, the workers would take power to control the conditions of their lives."[3]
In 2004, Zinn published a companion volume with Anthony Arnove, titled Voices of a People's History of the United States. The book parallels A People's History in structure, supplementing it with material from frequently overlooked primary sources.
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[edit] Criticism
In a FrontPageMag.com article conservative Dan Flynn accuses Zinn of "intellectual dishonesty", inaccuracies and omissions, and claims that many of them would have been avoided if Zinn had "relied on his mind rather than his ideology to do his thinking."[4]
Liberal writer Michael Kazin also criticized the work in Dissent Magazine, contending that A People's History of the United States is too focused on class conflict, and wrongly attributes sinister motives to the American political elite.[5] James Loewen has also made similar statements about Zinn's writing.
Kazin says Zinn's portrayal of the U.S. Founding Fathers as "leaders of the new aristocracy" who sought to replace one form of oppressive elite control with another, is disingenuous. While many of the founders were themselves slave owners, Kazin observed that they did establish a liberal democracy and codified into law basic human rights and that their views, reflected in public and private documents, were fundamentally held beliefs, not just rhetoric. Kazin is critical of A People's History for what he believes is selective use of the experience of immigrants, focusing primarily on hardships faced by immigrants and not on the success that many experience.
[edit] Voices of a People's History
In 2004, Zinn and Anthony Arnove published a collection of more than 200 primary source documents titled Voices of a People's History of the United States, available both as a book and as a CD of dramatic readings. Writer Aaron Sarver notes that although Kazin "savaged" Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, "one of the few concessions Kazin made was his approval of Zinn punctuating 'his narrative with hundreds of quotes from slaves and Populists, anonymous wage-earners and ... articulate radicals.'"[6]
Whether Zinn intended it or not, Voices serves as a useful response to Kazin’s critique. As Sarver observes, "Voices is a vast anthology that tells heartbreaking and uplifting stories of American history. Kazin will be hard-pressed to charge Zinn with politicizing the intelligence here; the volume offers only Zinn’s sparse introductions to each piece, letting the actors and their words speak for themselves."[6]
[edit] Current editions
- Zinn, Howard (2005). A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. ISBN 0-06-083865-5.
- Zinn, Howard (2005). Arnove, Anthony: Voices of a People's History of the United States. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 1-58322-628-1.
- Zinn, Howard (2003). A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-052842-7.
- Zinn, Howard (1980). A People's History of the United States. Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-014803-9.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Prix des Amis du Monde diplomatique 2003 announcement, 1 December 2003.
- ^ Quoted in Dan Flynn, "Master of Deceit", FrontPage magazine.com, 3 June 2003.
- ^ Catherine Parayre, "The Conscience of the Past: An interview with historian Howard Zins", Flagpole Magazine Online, 18 February 1998.
- ^ Flynn, "Master of Deceit".
- ^ Michael Kazin, "Howard Zinn's History Lessons", Dissent Magazine, Spring 2004
- ^ a b Aaron Sarver, The Secret History", In These Times, 16 September 2005
