America is a strong and great country. And as all great countries it has its black spots in its history which could not be covered neither with time nor money. Any other country has so much blood in its past and has not lived so much violence. It occurred only because white people knew how to make whisky and money, while millions of Indians and Blacks were considered as a second-class.
A People's History of the United States is a unique book in many ways. It proposed a revolutionary perspective on American history. Its author, Howard Zinn, stopped his attention in the book at unusual and unexpected facts. The author’s style is entertaining and fun. This book rightfully belongs to the best examples of works written in a critical pedagogy. It narrates about the countless crimes of American capitalism against its people and the peoples of the other countries that became victims of imperialism and neo-colonialism. It is a book about class struggle in America, about different American problems and conflicts. The issues that the book covered are crucially important today in the period of constant social conflicts, military actions and political modifications, in which America takes part. A People's History of the United States written by Howard Zinn is an amazing book that provides a critic to all democratic American principles. First of all, the book narrates about people. It opens the stories of those, who with their hands created a real American history. Millions of simple Americans became the heroes of the book. They contributed to the creation of the United States of America. For this reason the history of America is called ‘people’s’. Let’s investigate the main questions raised by the author, and the reason it provoked such a discrepant feedback.
Howard Zinn was born in Brooklyn on 24 August 1922. His parents were immigrants and lived in poverty. Parents had not have a possibility to give him education. That is why as all his friends from the working quarters, the young boy worked in the shipyards. Then he went to a war. There his anti-war beliefs were formed. Returning to America, he studied at the universities and began teaching history. His socio-political activity, particular views and the opposition cost him his teaching career in a college. In 1963, he was fired. Zinn used to tell students unpopular ideas about the obvious injustice of segregation and racial intolerance. He criticized the college administration for ignoring the youth discrimination. Zinn moved to Boston, where he taught the next two and a half decades, continuing to fight for freedom, peace, social progress, human rights and genuine democracy. In the total silence Zinn was the one to protest against the imperialist war, which the United States unleashed in Vietnam in the 60’s. Many years later, teaching history at the university, Zinn increasingly became convinced that civilian American society was unconsciousness and lacked the prejudice largely due to the education system (Joyce & Chomsky, 2003, 56). Therefore, Zinn created a fundamental and comprehensive work on the history of the United States of America, written from the point of view of ordinary people.
The traditional presentation of the history of the United States is reduced to the proclamation of the democratic principles by the founding fathers and the subsequent change of presidential administrations. It tells about the ratios of electoral targets of Republicans and Democrats, who are in constant search of economic growth. In the book A People's History of the United States, Zinn gives a voice to those who always had to keep silence. He gave possibility to speak to desperately resisted workers, women, youth, students, poor farmers, African Americans, Latin Americans, migrant workers, indigenous populations of the North American continent, socialists, anarchist, pacifists, abolitionist, victims of wars and the United States interventions. He raised a curtain of a long existed problem and forced people to understand their situation and government to see it. The curtain “rejected the false objectivity and declared its ethical and political allegiances” (“A People's History”, 2011). Zinn admits that the title of his book may not be completely accurate, but, with all the limitations, reflect that it has been written with respect to the people (“A People's History”, 2011).
The book has twenty-five chapters. It narrates the American history from the discoveries of North America to the modern times. Each chapter is dedicated to a concrete issue. For example, Zinn's first chapter ‘Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress’ discusses the reasons of Columbus’s expeditions, the treatment of indigenous people and interesting facts about colonization. Their extermination by white colonists relegated Indians to the status of an aggressive primitive civilization at the traditional image of history, where the romance of the foundation of America and adventure spirit replaces a scientific analysis. Their status in America was even worse than the position of Black and white slaves. They should have been exterminated, because were too numerous in the wanted territories and too lazy to give them work. According to Zinn, “English colonists besides the discovery made one more that determined the history for the next two hundred years, they found that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from favorites of the British Empire” (Zinn, 1980, Chapter 4). It winds away a beautiful story about Founding Fathers and the great idea of freedom. It is a steam boiler of people’s discontent of ruling elite in New England and extortions of the metropolis that heated people to the limit. According to Zinn, “history, looked at under the surface, in the streets and on the farms, in GI-barraks, and trailer camps, in factories and offices, tells a different story” (Zinn, 2004, 135)
In the second chapter ‘Drawing the Color Line’ Zinn writes about slavery. According to the historical sources provided by Zinn in the chapter, Virgin colonists needed a cheap and free labor force (Zinn, 1980, Chapter 2). But it was not something strange to the global practice in those times. In Africa, slavery flourished, despite the fact that the slaves there were in different condition, because, they felt themselves at home with all the traditions, customs, and languages. If history can help in finding answers to question “why slavery was introduced”, then the roots of slavery in North America on the continent, where we can establish the facts of first arrival of whites and blacks, can give us at least some hints. Slavery quickly turned into normal social institute, a normal way of the employment of blacks and whites in a New World. Together with slavery a special racial sense to them developed. It can be called hatred or contempt, compassion or patronage. In any case it was accompanied by a humiliating position of Blacks in America over the next 350 years. Nowadays, people call it racism. All that was the experience the first white settlers lived. What did push them to the enslavement of Blacks? Perhaps there was something called a private insolvency. They felt rage of their inability, for supremacy of the Indians at their homeland, which made first Virginian settlers especially ready to become slaveholders. In those years, nearly a million Blacks were imported as slaves in South America and the Caribbean.
Then Zinn tells the story of the Indians. According to Zinn, they did not have any chance (Zinn, 1980, Chapter 1). At first, they were solemnly promised that if they just move from their historical territories, they would forever retain the right to live in these places. Then they were demanded to clean all the territories. If they agreed, they were sent to the waterless and poor places, without food or clothes. For the crossing the river colonists provided them with old and weak vessels that often swam with all passengers. If the Indians did not want to move, they were required to leave their barbaric customs and join the ‘civilized’ society. They became beggars and slaves. It was a lottery without possibility to win (Zinn, 1980, Chapter 1).
The chapter 10 called ‘The Other Civil War’ blow away the myth about colonist South and industrial North. Zinn writes about the economic reasons of the Civil War. The Civil War between the Northern and Southern states was the inevitable consequence of the growing conflict between two social systems within the country (Zinn, 1980, Chapter 10). The controversy ended up in the issue of slavery that reflected economic and political interests of the planters. The maximum for the South was becoming an independent state. Conditions that have been created accelerated the development of industrial and agricultural production and development of Western lands, strengthened the internal market. Power in the country has shifted to the bourgeoisie of the Northeastern States. The war did not solve the problems that the country faced. Some of them have found a solution during the reconstruction of the South, which lasted till 1877. Others, including black population received equal rights with whites, but by fact remained slaves for many decades. As a result of the civil war at the cost of heavy losses the unity of the United States was saved and the slavery was abolished. The subsequent industrial development by the early 20th century made America one of the most economically developed countries in the world.
Howard Zinn possessed moral authority comparable to the fighters for justice and freedom. Zinn could not accept injustice and oppression, inseparable from the capitalist system. He took an active part in a wide range of anti-capitalist and emancipatory social movements, had anti-war, position. For Zinn and his followers the story boils down to the great struggle between the oppressors and the oppressed people. History of the United States, respectively, tells about the genocide of Indians, slavery, oppression of poor farmers and women, suffering working class under the yoke of capitalism and, accordingly, to the heroic struggle of oppressed minorities.
A People's History of the United States is a history of crimes of the ruling class against the working people of his country and of the victims of American imperialism. It is the memory of poverty, despair and injustice that millions had faced. It rarely can be found in the pages of textbooks. It is a story that is not taught in school, the history of class struggle through the eyes of the oppressed that in classical history typically resembles only the statistics of deaths in any war. Heroes of Howard Zinn are Indians, slaves, poor farmers, immigrants, workers, Afro and Latin Americans. He did not leave them behind, but opens the memory of their struggle for their concept of truth, freedom and human life. Howard Zinn is a key figure for the left movement in the United States and for the rest of the world. He made a revolution in writing the history of his country, giving a broad report with rea facts, providing simple people with a possibility to speak and to be heard. Critically speaking, the book tells the story not only of the American people, but also the history of its relationship along the history of the country with its surrounding states, with different tribes, peoples during the formation of America. It covers the fundamental principles of the American democracy and founds its reasons and postulates in the American history. In such a way, Howard Zinn represented another opinion on the official history. Such a view is very useful for comparing facts and findings, and ultimately, to generate the truth. Even if after years it is very difficult. The past always determines the future. Besides, the history is cyclic and everything will repeat in the identical or same manner. Howard Zinn taught do not close the eyes on the real history to avoid similar mistakes in the future.
Cited Works
Joyce, Davis D, and Noam Chomsky. Howard Zinn. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2003. Print.
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York: Harper & Row, 1980. Print.
Zinn, Howard, and Anthony Arnove. Voices of A People's History of the United States. Seven Stories Press 1st ed. New York: Seven Stories, 2004. Print.
