A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn doesn’t come across as an unbiased view of the illustrious existence of the likely most influential nation on this planet. To be fair, no one can likely achieve the state of complete objectivity, so I don’t hold anything against Zinn, although I would likely disagree with many of his conclusions and opinions if we had ever been able to meet.
Zinn’s objective is to highlight the policies and decisions that the federal government enacted over the relatively few centuries it existed that impacted the common citizen the most. He hits the highlights and lowlights of this country pretty thoroughly and does come off as quite critical of his own country. That is his right, and I applaud him for presenting a book that I found to be pretty well-written. I do not normally read history books on my own, so I do not have much of a comparison to make to other works of this kind at this time.’
I do applaud Zinn for acknowledging his biases in the afterword, so I can respect him as a writer even though I suspect that there are perspectives that may have been overlooked in this particular work. There again, one can likely make a credible case for that in just about every book of this genre.
This is a well-known presentation of the country’s history and was referenced in at least one popular movie that I know of.
Anyway, Zinn seems to have been quite diligent in his research and throws quite a bit at the reader. It’s a tough read for someone just indulging their curiosity, but I still enjoyed making the effort. I am not sure how much I will be able to retain, however it still seems worth the time,
This book comes with a reputation, and it seems to be derided by many of those on the conservative side of the political spectrum. Those criticisms likely have some validity, but I would still recommend adding this to the reading queue.
I am returning to a more familiar genre in my next read with Last Voyage by British mystery writer, Anna Clarke.
Reviews, Musings, and Other Things... 