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A People's History of the United States
In this book, Howard Zinn’s general thesis is that American history is best understood through a Marxist lens. That is, American history has typically been characterized by class conflict....
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A People's History of the United States
George W. Bush Jr. launched a "war on terrorism" after the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. In chapter 25, Howard Zinn (1922–2010) writes about the futility of Bush's...
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A People's History of the United States
Chapter 25, the last chapter in Howard Zinn's book, deals with two topics: the disputed presidential election of 2000 and America's reaction to the terrorist attack of 9/11. The presidential...
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A People's History of the United States
In his fourth chapter titled "Tyranny is Tyranny," of his book A People's History of the United States, author Howard Zinn presents a ground breaking interpretation of motives for the American...
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A People's History of the United States
The focus of chapter 5 is the American Revolution. In dubbing it, "A Kind of Revolution," Zinn is able to develop the idea that the American Revolution did not fundamentally transform who owned...
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A People's History of the United States
"War is the health of the state" is the title of chapter 14 in Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. The chapter title was penned by Randolph Bourne (1886–1918), an American...
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A People's History of the United States
The basic point of Zinn’s argument in this chapter can be seen in the title of the chapter: “Tyranny is Tyranny.” Zinn is arguing that the American Revolution was really just a substitution...
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A People's History of the United States
Zinn suggests that one reason early reason why Columbus oppressed indigenous people was out of fear of "the other." In landing in what he thought to be India, Columbus initially feared those who...
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A People's History of the United States
Despite the abolition of the slave trade by Congress in 1807—which came into effect the following year—many Americans continued to engage in what was still a highly lucrative practice. This was...
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A People's History of the United States
In Chapter One, Howard Zinn challenges the reader to view the history of the United States through a different lens. Zinn argues that most histories are told through the perspective of the elite....
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A People's History of the United States
I think that Zinn would answer that the sacrifice of human progress is the voice of dissent. The narrative that Zinn constructs regarding progress in the United States is one in which every step...
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A People's History of the United States
Zinn claims that traditional interpretations of Columbus's encounters in the "New World" do not sufficiently grapple with the horrific consequences of these encounters, which were the result of...
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A People's History of the United States
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, there was enormous popular discontent, often pointed directly at landlords and tax collectors. Many early mass actions were direct examples of...
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A People's History of the United States
A People's History of the United States is written with an extreme leftist slant. Howard Zinn is strongly biased against capitalism and towards a Marxist interpretation of society and history. The...
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A People's History of the United States
In "Chapter Two: Drawing the Color Line," Howard Zinn seeks to find answers to two questions: where did American racism originate and what--if anything--can end it. Zinn's main argument is that...
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A People's History of the United States
The ultimate fate of the Arawak Indians was to die out. They were killed off by a variety of factors that were connected to the coming of the Spaniards to the New World. In Chapter 1 of this book,...
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A People's History of the United States
For Zinn, the irony concerning John Locke was that his advocacy was predicated upon supporting those in the position of economic power. Zinn points out that Locke's ideas of government, popular...
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A People's History of the United States
In Howard Zinn's recount of American history, A People's History of the United State, Chapters 4 and 5 are dedicated to the American Revolution. Zinn characterizes the revolution as a struggle of...
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A People's History of the United States
First, Zinn makes it clear that Columbus and his Spanish backers were motivated primarily by a desire to discover new sources of wealth. This explains their approach to dealing with the native...
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A People's History of the United States
The answer to this question can be found in Chapter 19 of A People’s History of the United States. This chapter is entitled “Surprises.” The brief answer is that, according to Howard Zinn,...
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A People's History of the United States
What Zinn is talking about here is the ability of the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong (the organized human beings) to defeat the US military (the organized modern technology). Zinn argues that...
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A People's History of the United States
The Mexican War is the subject of Chapter Eight of A People's History of the United States, and Zinn's narrative of the conflict focuses on the intense opposition to the war among abolitionists and...
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A People's History of the United States
This sentence is the last sentence of Chapter 4 in the book. In this chapter, Zinn is arguing that the American Revolution was not really the noble effort to create a fair and democratic society...
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A People's History of the United States
The essence of Zinn's work is that he focuses on "communities" as opposed to the United States as a singular community. For Zinn, the problem with the standard read on history and the standard...
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A People's History of the United States
Most Americans believe the Constitution is—if not a masterpiece—one of history's most important documents, because it established the American democratic system and paved the way for political...
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A People's History of the United States
The first chapter of A People's History of the United States is mostly an account of Christopher Columbus's encounter with Native Americans in the Caribbean. Essentially, Zinn is interested in...
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A People's History of the United States
Chapter 13 describes the rise of a socialist and Progressive critique of society in turn-of-the-century America. A number of factors fueled this critique. Zinn describes popular opposition to the...
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A People's History of the United States
When thinking about Chapter 3, the main thing to remember is that Howard Zinn writes from a Marxist perspective. This fact helps us understand the main idea and thesis of this chapter. In this...
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A People's History of the United States
The answer to this can be found in Chapter 11 of the book. In this chapter, Zinn is arguing that the late 1800s were a time when the "robber barons" and other capitalists dominated the United...
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A People's History of the United States
In Chapter 11 of A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn is discussing the late 1800s. As this is the time just before the Progressive Era, he does not discuss the muckrakers, who...
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A People's History of the United States
In chapter 17, entitled "Or Does It Explode?" Zinn basically deals with the civil rights movement, or what he calls the "black revolt" of the mid 20th century. There are many black authors who are...
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A People's History of the United States
In this chapter, Zinn focuses on the idea that both state and federal government always took the side of the rich employers and land owners over the workers and renters. He does not talk much...
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A People's History of the United States
According to Zinn, the primary purpose of a public school education during the Gilded Age was to train skilled and semi-skilled workers for the new age of industry. The rise of public school...
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A People's History of the United States
Chapter 9 of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States examines slavery, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction era. Zinn traces the limited successes of grassroots abolitionist...
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A People's History of the United States
One of the most important themes in Chapters 17 and 18 in A People's History of the United States is that individual action can have profound effects on social and political policy. In chapter 17,...
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A People's History of the United States
The point of this chapter in Zinn’s book is that the United States government has consistently abused the Native Americans. The title refers to a phrase used by Andrew Jackson in giving...
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A People's History of the United States
The basic theme of oppression as part of the narrative in American History comes out in chapter 7. Zinn opens in discussing how women in the time period represented the most "interior" form of...
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A People's History of the United States
Bailyn's fundamental starting point is that aspects of American History such as the Revolution and the Constitution emerged from an ideological reality shared amongst the Framers. Bailyn believes...
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A People's History of the United States
As you say, most histories portray the New Deal as a very important change in government's role in society. The New Deal is seen as the beginning of the modern state that we have now where...
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A People's History of the United States
In Chapter 2 of this book, Zinn offers a number of examples of the historical forces that can be said to have caused racism. He does not really offer examples of human decisions. Let us look...
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A People's History of the United States
As with most parts of Zinn's book, I think there is an element of truth in Chapter 16, but that it caricatures US actions and ignores the ways in which those actions really did adhere to the values...
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A People's History of the United States
The main idea that comes out of Chapter 14 can be found in its title. Randolph Bourne's notion of "War is the health of the state" suggests that the government and state, as a whole, benefits when...
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A People's History of the United States
Zinn's view of capitalism and industrialists is evident from the title of the chapter itself. He refers to industrialists who skilfully terrace "separate levels of oppression" along the "pyramid of...
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A People's History of the United States
Chapter 15 takes a materialist point of view in analyzing the 1920s. Usually, the time period is wrapped in the social element of the flappers, the dances, and speakeasies. Zinn takes the point...
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A People's History of the United States
For Zinn, the differences between both the Federalist and the Democratic- Republicans were cosmetic. Both parties were not actively involved in the enlargement of wealth to more people or...
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A People's History of the United States
Chapter 23 is titled "The Coming Revolt of the Guards." Zinn's argument in this chapter is that the middle class—a group long supportive of what he terms the "one percent," which is hostile to...
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A People's History of the United States
Zinn's basic argument about World War I is that it was a war that the United States participated in because of the demands of the capitalist classes. Zinn points out that the official rationales...
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A People's History of the United States
The predominate theme of this chapter of A People's History is the same as the rest of the book. Zinn traces the history of women's roles from the colonial period to the Civil War, arguing that...
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A People's History of the United States
There are two main points in Chapter 8 of A People’s History of the United States. You could combine the two and say that the one overarching main point is that the Mexican-American War was a bad...
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A People's History of the United States
Zinn deals with this topic in the most detail in Chapter 13 of A People's History. Essentially, he argues that socialism reached a sort of high-water mark during the Progressive Era, owing largely...
