“A People’s History of the United States” - Howard Zinn

APHOUS is a must-read to gain broader understanding about our nation’s history beyond the linear path charted by our old textbooks. I enjoyed Zinn’s extraordinary writing style, his precise arrangement of chapters, and his thorough research. Zinn says of own bias that he set out to write “a new kind of history”; his intention was to tell the story of minorities and movements, the people who are typically omitted by history books and mainstream media. He says such a deliberately one-sided approach is acceptable because the story of governments, leaders, and victors already fills out textbooks and collective education systems.

I’m not suggesting he’s infallible (there are certainly areas which he himself acknowledges weren’t adequately addressed in this volume), however if you read with even a modicum of critical thinking, I think you’ll find his work informative and engaging. Highlights from the 20th century edition include a new forward where he discusses his approach, and an interesting analysis of choices made in framing heroes versus victims.

The Las Casas account appears to be the only primary/contemporaneous European account available to us concerned with documenting the true horrors inflicted upon the Arawak. I need to do some digging because I recall coming across a book recounting the history of the Americas not from the POV of the colonizers, but from the accounts of indigenous peoples; I can’t locate the title yet, but I’m working on finding it.

Zinn excerpts Sojourner Truth’s powerful “Ain’t I a Woman” speech which perfectly encapsulates the triple burden faced by Black women. I would have liked to see more on intersection of race and gender in women’s rights and abolition movements.

It’s primary source research such as this, that really underscores the points Zinn makes. The ever-present specter of slavery loomed even over those in the “free North”. This little boy’s words are haunting.

As LMTTM points out, the numerous and deadly wars fought by (variously) the US government (and its proxies) and settlers against the multitude of tribes is mostly omitted from American history textbooks. Often the only reference we read is to the Cherokee and their forced march along the Trail of Tears, but it bears emphasizing that these were but a single tribe of many who were violently forced on these wretched marches from their homelands. Zinn walks us through the pattern of deceit and false promise of land and brotherhood made by a long line of US presidents, but perhaps none as devastating as Jackson. 

Under the mantle of American Imperialism, Zinn tackles the McKinley administration, the Spanish-American war, and American interference in Cuba. In Cuba, the US entered conflict between Spanish colonialism and Cuban rebels late in its existence, but then took full credit for ousting Spain, going so far as to prohibit Cuban rebels from joining treaty talks or assuming control of their new government. 

The US instigated open conflict with Philippine insurgents who were seeking their own independence; these people certainly did not want to replace subjugation by Spain with subjugation by the US. Zinn traces US interference in the Philippines along 2 lines: 1) money (access to Asian markets), and 2) plain Anglo-Saxon racism towards “orientals”. Horrifyingly, American troops operated with an eye to extermination of the local population; unsurprisingly an all together minimal standard of humanity applied to the Filipinos. 

Zinn spends a great deal of time in this era. He traces the major developments in the area of labor regulation (think: unions, worker safety). I enjoyed reading about the intersectionality of Black civil rights advocates, feminists, and labor organizers.

Prior to American entry in the conflict, Zinn spends some time reviewing British, French, and German news reports and the reality that no group was told what was actually happening (nor the actual number of casualties); instead, each side was fed sanitized, optimistic propaganda. Naturally this would continue as the US entered the war.

It’s worth an extra glance to note the machinations required for American entry into war. Zinn and others note the flimsy pretense based upon the sinking of US merchant ships by Germans (the US claimed neutrality but was shipping resources to the British), and the sinking of the heavily armed Lusitania (which the US claimed was merely a civilian ship carrying “innocent cargo”).

History textbooks don’t often cover the sheer volume of opposition to US entry into the conflict and later, the institution of the draft. Prosecution under the espionage act had the direct effect of neighbors spying on neighbors, eager to report the slightest hint of opposition to the war. The opposition to the war effort was most notable amongst the working class and poor. The war was broadly viewed as a rich, financier’s conflict. Censorship of media outlets, and common citizens was at an all-time high. SCOTUS gave an exceedingly narrow reading of what we now consider expansive First Amendment rights.

A few years ago, I was strolling through the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine for the Japanese war dead in Tokyo. It was a peaceful and verdant place, yet one could feel the ancient cultural reverence for the dead at odds with the nation’s imperial past and modern, post-war reconciliation. I paused before a monument dedicated to Indian jurist, Justice Radhabinod Pal, who was the lone dissent at the Tokyo Tribunal. I was puzzled by his conclusion. I realize now, that my confusion was due largely to the way in which Pearl Harbor has always been presented to US history students. On this subject, Zinn has given us much to ponder.

“[F]oreign aid was more and more obviously designed to build up military power in non-Communist countries”.  For example, JFK’s program to aid Latin American nations under guise of humanitarian aid was “mostly military aid to keep in power right-wing dictatorships and enable them to stave off revolutions.” Zinn tracks the evolution from military aid to full intervention in nations like Guatemala, Lebanon, Greece, and of course Cuba. 

The culture of fear-mongering that had gripped the nation, touting overblown if not entirely fictitious communist threats - had another (not unintended) consequence of booming defense spending.

Zinn asks us to contemplate all that  was “done by those mostly Black young people to achieve recognition and honoring of their fundamental human rights that were heretofore unenforced.” The swift and violent reactions to their efforts are a stark reminder of just how violent the white power structure became when Black people tried to empower themselves through protest. 

The fictitious “unprovoked attack” on what we now know was an American spy ship in Vietnamese waters — the Gulf of Tonkin incident gave LBJ excuse to launch full-scale war on Vietnam. 

To this day, American history textbooks make little mention if at all about US bombing campaigns in neighboring Laos, nor on the invasion of Cambodia under Nixon. James Loewen in “Lies My Teacher Told Me” offers a publishing and funding angle on why our American textbooks largely remain silent on Vietnam and American disastrous foreign policy in the region. He states that in the years after Vietnam, it was a sensitive American psyche that proscribed any suggestion that Vietnam was anything but an American victory. Decades later, our public schools are at the mercy of publishers whose bottom line mindset brokers no reason to go back and provide context.

It was fascinating to read about history that occurred during my lifetime. The Gulf War was covered one way in the mainstream news of the time, which is what I would’ve heard as a child. The reality was much different.

An interesting point was the startling speed of development of an anti-war movement when war itself only 6 weeks long.

Despite the sparkling optimism recalled in history, I was surprised to learn of the lack of voter turnout and enthusiasm during both elections; upwards of 40% eligible voters didn’t vote. Zinn mentions a particularly popular bumper sticker “if God had intended us to vote, He would have given us candidates.”

Zinn draws parallels between Nixon in Korea and Bush’s War on Terror. Citing the IRA, Zinn writes that as far as policy is concerned, a violent response to terrorism would only create more terrorists not fewer.

Based on the above, I think you’ll conclude that I learned a great deal from this book and would highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in American history. While our nation’s history has been far from perfect, it doesn’t due to run away from negative truths, and Zinn dives right in!

Given the sheer scope of Zinn’s work, I’m not surprised that there were a couple of areas that I wish he had addressed in greater detail. Zinn only spared a few sentences on the vital importance of suffrage (independent of other movements such as abolition). Obviously entire books could be devoted to this subject alone, but similar to how Zinn walks us through the development of unions as they arose during the Progressive era, a discussion of the suffrage movement would have been welcome. As I said earlier, he does bring up the subject of suffrage in his discussion of abolition, I’d have liked to see more detail on the intersectionality between the two movements - specifically the treatment of Black women (which Zinn does refer to when writing about abolition).

Zinn himself acknowledges he has not told the full story. In his most recent forward, he specifies a myriad of LGBTQ+ topics (including but not limited to the AIDS epidemic, and rights hard won) as well as the immigrant stories of Latin Americans in the US that he hopes other historians will take up in their turn. 

All this to say, this is an excellent overview of key moments in American history, as told from a POV that differs from most major history textbooks (see above re. biases). Of course neither perspective is superior, but I’d say both are equally valuable.