A People's History of the United States

Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is one of the most famous American history books published in recent decades. It has sold over two million copies. First published in 1980, the book was nominated for the American Book Award and has gone through at least six major revisions. Although controversial when first published, the book has become comfortably mainstream. It is mentioned by name in the film Good Will Hunting and the hit television show The Sopranos. And songwriter Bruce Springsteen claimed that his album Nebraska was inspired by reading Zinn’s book. The work is often assigned to both high school and college students.

Zinn was born in 1922 and grew up in working-class Brooklyn, New York until the outbreak of World War II. Zinn joined the Army Air Corps and flew bomber missions. After the war, he completed a Ph.D. in history and became an active and eccentric scholar teaching at numerous prestigious American institutions. Many of his books would become bestsellers but none surpassed A People’s History, which most regard as Zinn’s magnum opus. The popularity of the book comes from two unique strengths. First, the book runs the gamut of American history, starting with Columbus’s first expeditions to the new world and concluding, in the most recent editions, with the election of George W. Bush and the War on Terror. Second, the book advances a clear and coherent argument that shapes every chapter and organizes the wide scope of US history under a few key themes.

Summary

Zinn’s argument in A People’s History is controversial, but it shapes the entirety of his narrative. It is a version of Marxist theory known as historical materialism. Historical materialism was first articulated by Karl Marx in the middle of the 19th century and is still used (with significant modifications) by scholars today. Marx argued that economics, or a society’s material condition, creates the forces that drive history. These economic forces are further conditioned by struggles for resources between and within societies, the most important struggle in modern societies being that between workers and owners of capital.

Zinn argues that US politics has been conditioned by a fundamental struggle between the impoverished working class and the elites or establishment. Europeans landed in North America in the waning days of the 15th century. Within a generation, they had established themselves as masters over not only the Indigenous peoples but also over a new group of immigrants forcibly imported from Africa. From this perspective, the Americas (including the US) were defined from this point forward by a struggle between the classes. Even though the US was blessed with ample resources, elites worked diligently to share only what they had to with the common people. Importantly, Zinn focuses on understanding not only how elites maintained control over US politics but also on how popular movements and everyday people fought for a fair share. These movements, Zinn argues, have long been suppressed by historians who have, intentionally or otherwise, reinforced rather than challenged the elite’s version of US history. A People’s History is then an attempt to correct the record.