People's History of the United Term Paper

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While most history textbooks tell stories from the perspective of the wealthy and powerful, Zinn shows how things happened from the perspective of the powerless. For example, in Chapter 3: "Persons of Mean and Vile Condition," the author focuses on poor whites, blacks, and Native Americans, and their "unfair treatment by the wealthier classes," (50). Zinn also demonstrates throughout a People's History of the United States how racism and bigotry became institutionalized and acceptable practices, and critiques colonial America as being definitively "feudal" in nature (48).

People's History of America exposes the dark side of American politics throughout the history of the nation, not aggrandizing or idealizing typical heroes and founding fathers like most history books do. For example, Zinn shows how men like Alexander Hamilton were overtly concerned with preserving elitist privilege in American politics and went out of their ways to ignore dissenting voices. The elitist culture of early America shaped the evolution of the nation, according to Zinn.

The author honors dissenting political and social positions, and especially spends much time on the whole half of the American populace that was ignored entirely and disbarred from participating in politics until relatively recently: women.

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Furthermore, Zinn elucidates the immense social changes taking place at the turn of the twentieth century, when Marxism and socialism threatened to undermine the American establishment. However, people in power have systematically oppressed large groups of people who threatened their authority and many social conflicts in America can be blamed on the wide gap between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless. Howard Zinn's a People's History of the United States is a classic and should be read alongside other history textbooks to provide a more complete picture of the roots and evolution of our society.

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