A People’s History of the United States

Howard Zinn – 1981

Long required reading both in and out of classrooms, and oft-banned, there is little insight I can contribute on Zinn’s Golden Bough of American imperialism, except to say that I wish it hadn’t become such a sacred text for burgeoning socialists, because it tends to be taken as more doctrine than history by the left and as anti-American propaganda to be avoided as much as the Communist Manifesto by the right.  This is unfortunate because there are certain issues that should be understood and accepted by every citizen, regardless of political persuasion; starting with the fact that the United States has always had a deeply complicated struggle with the ideals espoused by its own Constitution.  Yes, school textbooks have been notoriously simplistic and uncritical in portraying war as the response of the righteous against attack by evil forces.  A book like this is much needed as an alternate point-of-view to decades of such indoctrination of youth in a patriotism that is more about flag-waving than civic duty.  It is often criticized for being one-sided, bearing an unequivocal agenda to portray American power brokers as immoral, greedy and bloodthirsty, but I don’t see why any book is obligated to give equal time to opposing opinions; the book itself is the opposing opinion, and mainstream textbooks certainly never offered the same courtesy all those years.  Furthermore, it would be a mistake for liberals to expect warm validation on every page; Zinn approaches the finale of the book with scathing indictments of the Carter and Clinton presidencies, which he defines as using the affectations of leftism to mask a pro-big business agenda scarcely different from that of Republican administrations.  The thing that stuck out to me the most in re-reading it is not the extent to which American political and business leaders are corrupt and hypocritical, or that capitalism is inherently evil; it’s the amazing resilience of the will to freedom.  Again and again, despite little but heartache and horror for their trouble, citizens continue to respond with outright defiance at attempts to subjugate them.  Whether in the form of slave revolts, or workers strikes, or the wave of counterculture activity in the 60s and 70s, human beings demonstrate an abject dread and resentment of control and abuse inflicted on them by the elite.  Unfortunately, this has not often led to repentance but to the recurring theme in political rhetoric of speaking for “the people” while actually plotting to betray them, or – at best – ignoring them, which has become de rigueur for Democrats and Republicans alike.  Speaking as someone who is suspicious and intolerant of propaganda, all I can say is that Zinn’s history, warts and all, is more beneficial than not.  I often see complaints that it’s not objective, but I rarely encounter complaints that anything in it is untrue.