A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present, by Howard Zinn (New York: Perennial Classics, 2001; first published in 1980)Part of the legacy of Howard Zinn,
A People’s History of the United States “[chronicles] American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version of history taught in schools – with its emphasis on great men in high places – to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace.”
A People’s History of the United States should be required reading.
… a ‘people’s history’ promises more than any one person can fulfill, and it is the most difficult kind of history to recapture. I call it that anyway because, with all its limitations, it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people’s movements of resistance.
That makes it a biased account, one that leans in a certain direction. I am not troubled by that, because the mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction – so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people’s movements – that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission. – from
A People’s History of the United States, by Howard Zinn
Related WebsitesHoward Zinn’s WebsitePublisher's Website