"A People's History of the United States", Howard Zinn: The Zinn Master

First, let me say that I know I don't have too many readers for this autobiographical blog about my library. And secondly, I apologize for the lagging...I went away to help my brother's wedding, and then I came back and broke my leg, which has left me laid up and less motivated to work on my peripheral blogs.

But this is one of my favorites, so I couldn't stay away for too long.

And, this book, Howard Zinn's must-read history told from the point-of-view of the losers, A People's History of the United States, is one of my favorite books. I bought this myself in 2004 sometime, and I'm pretty sure I bought a few copies, with the others going to close friends. It's an updated version that has the 2000 election and the War on Terror, going up to 2002.

Any honest history class should have this book, or sections of this book as needed for counter points. See how Columbus slaughtered the Arawak of Cuba, effectively exterminating them. See how the native opposition to the government worked on the ground. See how...well, let's just say this is an angry book.

Conservative pundits decry it as liberal revisionist history, but the facts of history tend to be ugly and wart covered. Sometimes it's just a point of view. Two of my favorite lines in the book are the opening lines from the chapter on the Vietnam conflict:

"From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country---and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won." (Page 469)

That chapter went goes on to discuss how the Vietnamese were a pain in the butthole for the Japanese, who occupied them during WWII, then, after the end of that mega-war, how the Vietnamese were a pain in the butthole for the French (but also from before the Japanese as well as after), and about how they declared independence and had a constitution and were supported by the US. Until they decided to adopt a more socialist government structure.

That whole scenario got me a little obsessed with Vietnam for a while. All they wanted was independence, from the 1880s on, and fought for it that whole time. They fought China, they fought France, they fought Japan, they fought France again, and then they pushed us out.

In any case, if you want to get angry and feel like you're getting the whole story, this is the book for you. If you want a spike in your blood pressure, this is the book for you. Honestly, I can't read it from cover to cover like I would other books...it angers up the blood.

Howard Zinn, late as of 2010, inspired a slew of "People's History" books, written by experts in certain fields, all collaborated with the Zinn master and covering a wide range of topics. An example I have that'll show up here at some point is Dave Zirin's People's History of Sports.

I like Dave Zirin, and another one his other books that I have, Bad Sports, is another tough, blood-angering tome.