A People's History of the United States

By: Howard Zinn

Narrated by: Jeff Zinn

THE CLASSIC NATIONAL BESTSELLER

""A wonderful, splendid book—a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future."" –Howard Fast

Historian Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace.

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, it is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of—and in the words of—America's women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As Zinn shows, many of our country's greatest battles—the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women's rights, racial equality—were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.

Covering Christopher Columbus's arrival through President Clinton's first term, A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history. This edition also includes an introduction by Anthony Arnove, who wrote, directed, and produced The People Speak with Zinn and who coauthored, with Zinn, Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

©2009 Howard Zinn; (P)2009 HarperCollins Publishers

This is a great listen

Winston Churchill said that "History is written by the victors". This book is told from the losers side. Very well written and read. If you are interested in the truth about history, you should give this book a listen.

Essential reading/listening

There exists no other American history book like this one. One where history is told through the eyes, ears and voices of the vanquished, not the victors. One where matters of class, power, race, gender, struggle, organizing and overcoming are central themes. One where despite America's sordid history, there remains hope when the people band together to demand basic rights and justice. One where progress is possible, and understanding our country's history is vital to that progress and our very survival. Thank you Howard Zinn, for illuminating a very long, dark path.

Definitely an Eye Opener

Talk about a real education!! It's a lot to take in but I can't see how the author could have done it with less content. He backs everything up with references. Court cases, newspaper articles, Senate reports, official government documentation, historical accounts, and much more. This is FAR from the patriotic lessons we learned in school. The knowledge you get from this book is life changing. I may even buy the book to go back through it and highlight the heck out of it.

Factual history to replace that biased one

This was an excellent telling of how the United States actually came to be and a detailed fact based narrative of events since then. This is a version that would not be told by any country in particular as it does not favor any. It tells events in a way we would wish journalists would cover them, but they do not as they and/or their networks hold too much bias to allow this kind of impartiality. It is a bit brutal in spots, but always authentic. In my opinion it allowed areas that had not made sense from the official school version of history, to finally make sense. Even my 11 year old was interested in hearing history in this manner... although Columbus Day at school was ruined forever for him.

Communist propaganda but interesting

I’m a deep right wing man , but I enjoyed this perspective throughly. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we have to understand other people’s point of view to be better argue our own points of view.