A Peoples History of the United States 1492-Present _by HOWARD ZINN?

Answer 1

Yankee Sailor sure put the nix on Zinn, but I would not. Of course his materials are not commonly known, he was not writing a standard history, he was writing a social history that involved the lives of people during American History. There are many schools of historiography and Zinn is in one of them. Associated with him is a man named Gutman who wrote much in the same vein. There is a recent book, very similar, on the life of people during the Civil War and I found that quite interesting. I have read Zinn and found him interesting. The problem with most who have read him is that their politics makes it difficult to comprehend what he is saying. If you read the book with an open mind, knowing that it is not going to run parallel to other historians, then you can gain information from it.

Having worked for publishing houses and sold those books, I know Zinn and knew Gutman who taught at City College in NYC.

Find a book on historiography and look through that. There are more different interpretations to American History than just those your 11th grade history teacher tells you.

Answer 2

There is no such thing as apolitical or neutral history. Many people distrust Zinn because he presents a history quite different from what we learn in school. I find Peoples History to be quite useful for the reader whose exposure to history has occurred mostly in the classroom and TV. It is a great beginning study if one wants to study history beyond the standard version of USA is great, exploitation of man by man is the natural order of things, wave the flag, say the pledge of allegiance, sit down and shut up version of history.

That being said, no history should be read uncritically.

Answer 3

trash, garbage and selectively edited with un-proven information to support a leftist agenda while hypocritically presenting its distortions as unbiased "history".....in short propaganda.....believe about 15% of what you read in it.