A People's History of the United States

**A People's History of the United States** is a book written by Howard Zinn describing various points of US history from the perspective of minorities and political activists.

## Summary

Content Warning: Discussion of genocide, rape, violence and discrimination

### Columbus to independence

Chapter 1, "Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress" covers early Native American civilization in North America and the Bahamas, the genocide and enslavement committed by the crew of Christopher Columbus,
 and incidents of violent colonization by early settlers. Instead of
restating the same history that has been presented for centuries, Zinn
states that he prefers to tell history from the perspective of the
Arawaks, which many people are not familiar with. He describes the
purpose of Columbus' expedition and his brutality towards the natives
after his arrival. Not only does he use firsthand account of witnesses
to Columbus' presence in the islands, he also provides statistics of
native casualties to present this different side of history. Topics
include the Arawaks, Bartolomé de las Casas, the Aztecs, Hernán Cortés, Pizarro, Powhatan, the Pequot, the Narragansett, Metacom, King Philip's War, and the Iroquois.

Chapter 2, "Drawing the Color Line" addresses the African slave trade and servitude of poor British people in the Thirteen Colonies.
 Zinn writes of the methods by which he says racism was created
artificially in order to enforce the economic system. He argues that
racism is not natural because there are recorded instances of
camaraderie and cooperation between black slaves and white servants in
escaping from and in opposing their subjugation.

Chapter 3, "Persons of Mean and Vile Condition" describes Bacon's Rebellion (1676), the economic conditions of the poor in the colonies, and opposition to their poverty. Zinn uses Nathaniel Bacon's rebellion to assert that "class lines hardened through the colonial period".[9]

Chapter 4, "Tyranny Is Tyranny" covers the movement for "leveling" (economic equality) in the colonies and the causes of the American Revolution. Zinn argues that the Founding Fathers
 agitated for war to distract the people from their own economic
problems and to stop popular movements, a strategy that he claims the
country's leaders would continue to use in the future.

Chapter 5, "A Kind of Revolution" covers the war and resistance
to participating in war, the effects on the Native American people, and
the continued inequalities in the new United States. When the land of
veterans of the Revolutionary War was seized for non-payment of taxes,
it led to instances of resistance to the government, as in the case of Shays' Rebellion.
 Zinn wrote that "governments - including the government of the United
States - are not neutral ... they represent the dominant economic
interests, and ... their constitutions are intended to serve these
interests."[10]

### Independence to the robber barons

Chapter
 6, "The Intimately Oppressed" describes resistance to inequalities in
the lives of women in the early years of the U.S. Zinn tells the stories
 of women who resisted the status quo, including Polly Baker, Anne Hutchinson, Mary Dyer, Amelia Bloomer, Catharine Beecher, Emma Willard, Harriot Kezia Hunt, Elizabeth Blackwell, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Margaret Fuller, Sarah Grimké, Angelina Grimké, Dorothea Dix, Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, and Sojourner Truth.

If you look through
high school textbooks and elementary school textbooks in American
history, you will find Andrew Jackson the frontiersman, soldier,
democrat, man of the people – not Jackson the slaveholder, land
speculator, executioner of dissident soldiers, exterminator of Indians.

Chapter 7, "As Long As Grass Grows or Water Runs" discusses 19th
century conflicts between the U.S. government and Native Americans (such
 as the Seminole Wars) and Indian removal, especially during the administrations of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

Chapter 8, "We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God" describes the Mexican–American War. Zinn writes that President James Polk agitated for war for the purpose of imperialism. Zinn argues that the war was unpopular, but that some newspapers of that era misrepresented the popular sentiment.[12]

Chapter 9, "Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom" addresses slave rebellions, the abolition movement, the Civil War,
 and the effect of these events on African-Americans. Zinn writes that
the large-scale violence of the war was used to end slavery instead of
the small-scale violence of the rebellions because the latter may have
expanded beyond anti-slavery, resulting in a movement against the capitalist
 system. He writes that the war could limit the freedom granted to
African-Americans by allowing the government control over how that
freedom was gained.

Chapter 10, "The Other Civil War", covers the Anti-Rent movement, the Dorr Rebellion, the Flour Riot of 1837, the Molly Maguires, the rise of labor unions, the Lowell girls movement, and other class struggles centered around the various depressions
 of the 19th century. He describes the abuse of government power by
corporations and the efforts by workers to resist those abuses.[13][14]

Chapter 11, "Robber Barons and Rebels" covers the rise of
industrial corporations such as the railroads and banks and their
transformation into the nation's dominant institutions, with corruption
resulting in both industry and government. Also covered are the popular
movements and individuals that opposed corruption, such as the Knights of Labor, Edward Bellamy, the Socialist Labor Party, the Haymarket martyrs, the Homestead strikers, Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, Eugene V. Debs, the American Railway Union, the Farmers' Alliance, and the Populist Party.

### The Twentieth Century

Chapter 12, "The Empire and the People", covers American imperialism during the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War, as well as in other lands such as Hawaii, Guam, and Puerto Rico. The Teller Amendment is discussed. Zinn portrays the wars as racist and imperialist and opposed by large segments of the American people.

Chapter 13, "The Socialist Challenge", covers the rise of socialism and anarchism as popular political ideologies in the United States. Covered in the chapter are the American Federation of Labor
 (which Zinn argues provided too exclusive of a union for non-white,
female, and unskilled workers; Zinn argues in Chapter 24 that this
changes in the 1990s), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, Joe Hill, the Socialist Labor Party, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Progressive Party (which Zinn portrays as driven by fear of radicalism).

Chapter 14, "War Is the Health of the State" covers World War I and the anti-war movement that happened during it, which was met with the heavily enforced Espionage Act of 1917. Zinn argues that the United States entered the war in order to expand its foreign markets and economic influence.

Chapter 15, "Self-Help in Hard Times" covers the government's campaign to destroy the IWW, and the factors leading to the Great Depression.
 Zinn states that, despite popular belief, the 1920s were not a time of
prosperity, and the problems of the Depression were simply the chronic
problems of the poor extended to the rest of the society. Also covered
is the Communist Party's attempts to help the poor during the Depression.

Chapter 16, "A People's War?", covers World War II,
 opposition to it, and the effects of the war on the people. Zinn, a
veteran of the war himself, notes that "it was the most popular war the
US ever fought",[15]
 but states that this support may have been manufactured through the
institutions of American society. He cites various instances of
opposition to fighting (in some cases greater than those during World
War I) as proof. Zinn also argues that the US's true intention was not
fighting against systematic racism, since the US had this itself, such
as with the Jim Crow laws (leading to opposition to the war from African-Americans). Another argument made by Zinn is that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
 were not necessary, as the U.S. government had already known that the
Japanese were considering surrender beforehand. Other subjects from WWII
 covered include Japanese American internment and the bombing of Dresden. The chapter continues into the Cold War,
 which Zinn writes was used by the U.S. government to increase control
over the American people (for instance, eliminating such radical
elements as the Communist Party) and at the same time create a state of
permanent war, which allowed for the creation of the military–industrial complex. Zinn believes this was possible because both conservatives and liberals willingly worked together in the name of anti-Communism. Also covered is US involvement in the Greek Civil War, the Korean War, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and the Marshall Plan.

Chapter 17, "'Or Does It Explode?'" (named after a line from Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem" from "Montage of a Dream Deferred", referred to as "Lenox Avenue Mural" by Zinn), covers the Civil Rights Movement.
 Zinn argues that the government began making reforms against
discrimination (although without making fundamental changes) for the
sake of changing its international image, but often did not enforce the
laws that it passed. Zinn also argues that while nonviolent tactics may
have been required for Southern civil rights activists, militant actions
 (such as those proposed by Malcolm X) were needed to solve the problems of black ghettos. Also covered is the involvement of the Communist Party in the movement, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Freedom Riders, COINTELPRO, and the Black Panther Party.

Chapter 18, "The Impossible Victory: Vietnam", covers the Vietnam War and resistance to it. Zinn argues that America was fighting a war that it could not win, as the Vietnamese people were in favor of the government of Ho Chi Minh and opposed the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem,
 thus allowing them to keep morale high. Meanwhile, the American
military's morale was very low, as many soldiers were put off by the
atrocities they were made to take part in, such as the My Lai massacre.
 Zinn also tries to dispel the popular belief that opposition to the war
 was mainly among college students and middle-class intellectuals, using
 statistics from the era to show higher opposition from the working
class. Zinn argues that the troops themselves also opposed the war,
citing desertions and refusals to go to war, as well as movements such
as Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Also covered is the US invasions of Laos and Cambodia, Agent Orange, the Pentagon Papers, Ron Kovic, and raids on draft boards.

Chapter 19, "Surprises", covers other movements that happened during the 1960s, such as second-wave feminism, the prison reform/prison abolition movement, the Native American rights movement, and the counterculture. People and events from the feminist movement covered include Betty Friedan's *The Feminine Mystique*, Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, Patricia Robinson, the National Domestic Workers Union, National Organization for Women, *Roe v. Wade*, Susan Brownmiller's *Against Our Will*, and *Our Bodies, Ourselves*. People and events from the prison movement covered include George Jackson, the Attica Prison riots, and Jerry Sousa. People and events from the Native American rights movement covered include the National Indian Youth Council, Sid Mills, *Akwesasne Notes*, Indians of All Tribes, the First Convocation of American Indian Scholars, Frank James, the American Indian Movement, and the Wounded Knee incident. People and events from the counterculture covered include Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Malvina Reynolds, Jessica Mitford's *The American Way of Death*, Jonathan Kozol, George Dennison, and Ivan Illich.

Chapter 20, "The Seventies: Under Control?", covers political
corruption and American disillusion with the government during the
1970s. Zinn argues that the resignation of President Richard Nixon and the exposure of crimes committed by the CIA and FBI
 during the decade were done by the government in order to regain
support from the American people without making fundamental changes to
the system. According to Zinn, Gerald Ford's presidency continued the same basic policies of the Nixon administration. Other topics covered include protests against the Honeywell Corporation, Angela Davis, Committee to Re-elect the President, the Watergate scandal, International Telephone and Telegraph's involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, the Mayagüez incident, Project MKUltra, the Church Committee, the Pike Committee, the Trilateral Commission's *The Governability of Democracies*, and the People's Bi-Centennial.

Chapter 21, "Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus", covers the Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush
 administrations and their effects on both the American people and
foreign countries. Zinn argues that the Democratic and Republican
parties keep the government essentially the same, maintaining policies
favorable for corporations and militant foreign policy whichever party
was in power. Zinn uses similarities among the three administrations'
methods to argue for this. Other topics covered include the Fairness Doctrine, the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, Noam Chomsky, global warming, Roy Benavidez, the Trident submarine, the Star Wars program, the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the Iran–Contra affair, the War Powers Act, U.S. invasion of Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War, the Invasion of Grenada, Óscar Romero, the El Mozote massacre, the 1986 Bombing of Libya, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States invasion of Panama, and the Gulf War.

Chapter 22, "The Unreported Resistance", covers several movements
 that happened during the Carter-Reagan-Bush years that were ignored by
much of the mainstream media. Topics covered include the anti-nuclear movement, the Plowshares Movement, the Council for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze, the Physicians for Social Responsibility, George Kistiakowsky, *The Fate of the Earth*, Marian Wright Edelman, the Citizens' Clearinghouse for Hazardous Wastes, the Three Mile Island accident, the Winooski 44, Abbie Hoffman, Amy Carter, the Piedmont Peace Project, Anne Braden, César Chávez, the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Teatro Campesino, LGBT social movements, the Stonewall riots, Food Not Bombs, the anti-war movement during the Gulf War, David Barsamian, opposition to Columbus Day, *Indigenous Thought*, *Rethinking Schools*, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Chapter 23, "The Coming Revolt of the
 Guards", covers Zinn's theory on a possible future radical movement
against inequality in America. Zinn argues that there will eventually be
 a movement made up not only of groups previously involved in radical
change (such as labor organizers, black radicals, Native Americans,
feminists), but also members of the middle class who are starting to
become discontented with the state of the nation. Zinn expects this
movement to use "demonstrations, marches, civil disobedience; strikes and boycotts and general strikes; direct action to redistribute wealth, to reconstruct institutions, to revamp relationships".[16]

Chapter 24, "The Clinton Presidency", covers the effects of the Bill Clinton
 administration on the U.S. and the world. Zinn argues that despite
Clinton's claims that he would bring change, his presidency kept many
things the same. Topics covered include Jocelyn Elders, the Waco siege, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Crime Bill of 1996, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, the 1993 bombing of Iraq, Operation Gothic Serpent, the Rwandan genocide, the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the North American Free Trade Agreement, the 1998 bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan, the impeachment of Bill Clinton, Barbara Ehrenreich's *Nickel and Dimed*, Stand for Children, Jesse Jackson, the Million Man March, Mumia Abu-Jamal, John Sweeney, the Service Employees International Union, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, the Worker Rights Consortium, the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, *Spare Change News*, the North American Street Newspaper Association, the National Coalition for the Homeless, anti-globalization, and WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity.

Chapter 25, "The 2000 Election and the 'War On Terrorism'", covers the 2000 presidential election and the War on Terrorism. Zinn argues that attacks on the U.S. by Arab terrorists (such as the September 11, 2001 attacks) are not caused by a hatred for our freedom (as claimed by President George W. Bush), but by grievances with U.S. foreign policies such as "stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia ... sanctions against Iraq
 which ... had resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
children; [and] the continued U.S. support of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land."[17] Other topics covered include Ralph Nader, and the War in Afghanistan.

## External Links

* A People's History of the United States at historyisaweapon.com