Howard Zinns A Peoples History of the United States
Dr. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States might be better titled A Proletarian's History of the United States. In the first three chapters Zinn looks at not only the history of the conquerors, rulers, and leaders; but also the history of the enslaved, the oppressed, and the led. Like any American History book covering the time period of 1492 until the early 1760's, A People's History tells the story of the "discovery" of America, early colonization by European powers, the governing of these colonies, and the rising discontent of the colonists towards their leaders. Zinn, however, stresses the role ofa number of groups and ideas that most books neglect or skim over: the plight of the Native Americans that had their numbers reduced by up to 90% by European invasion, the equality of these peoples in many regards to their European counterparts, the importation of slaves into America and their unspeakable travel conditions and treatment, the callous buildup of the agricultural economy around these slaves, the discontented colonists whose plight was ignored by the ruling bourgeoisie, and most importantly, the rising class and racial struggles in America that Zinn correctly credits as being the root of many of the probl
martial law, organize them into work gangs, and force them into the fields for survival..... the political game of chess for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. Zinn asserts that there were clear contentions between the races that ultimately led to the revolution when the anger of the masses that was originally directed primarily at the bourgeoisie was redirected against England in the form of rhetoric, concessions, and propaganda calling for loyalty to America's upper classes and rebellion, first quiet and then loud, against England. "[The bind of loyalty] was the language of liberty and equality, which could unite just enough whites to fight a Revolution against England, without ending either slavery or inequality" (58). Zinn is absolutely correct in seeing the ulterior motives of our founding fathers; they realized that splitting from England would be good for them financially, socially, and politically. What they did was harness the people's anger against them and used it, quite ironically, for their own advancement. Ultimately, for the first 250 years of America's history, there was oppression and class warfare on varying scales that are traditionally ignored or unemphasized by traditional history texts, but Zinn masterfully shows the reader are major and influential parts of American history. To ignore the plight of the conquered and oppressed is to ignore a part of history that cannot be ignored. He goes on to vituperate historian Samuel Eliot Morison for his brief and buried mention of Columbus's genocide of the natives. This is one of the most heinous crimes a historian can commit, Zinn says, because "Outright lying or quiet omission takes the risk of discovery which, when made, might arouse the reader to rebel against the writer. To state the facts, however, and then bury them in a mass of other information is to say to the reader: yes, mass murder took place, but it's not that important... it should effect very little what we do in the world" (8). Zinn says that "selection, simplification, [and] emphasis" (8) are necessary to the historian, but he chooses to take a different stance in his writings. The core part of any history book is obviously history. In the first three chapters of the book, Zinn presents the major historical facts of the first 250 years of American history starting from when Christopher Columbus's Niņa, Pinta, and Santa Maria landed in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492. It was there that Europeans and Native Americans first came into contact; the Arawak natives came out to greet the whites, and the whites were only interested in finding the gold. From the Bahamas, Columbus sailed to Cuba and Hispaņola, the present-day home of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. One hundred fifteen years later and 1,500 miles to the north, the colony of Jamestown was founded by a group of English settlers led by John Smith; shortly after that the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by a group of Puritans known to us today as the Pilgrims. Because of uneasy and hostile relations with the nearby Pequot Indians, the Pequot War soon started between the colonists and the natives. Needless to say
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Approximate Word count = 2108
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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