Zinn's A People's History Of The United States Of America
Dr. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States might be
better titled A Proletarian's History of the United States. In the first
three chapters Zinn looks at not only the history of the conquerors, rulers,
and leaders; but also the history of the enslaved, the oppressed, and the
led. Like any American History book covering the time period of 1492 until
the early 1760's, A People's History tells the story of the "discovery" of
America, early colonization by European powers, the governing of these
colonies, and the rising discontent of the colonists towards their leaders.
Zinn, however, stresses the role of a number of groups and ideas that most
books neglect or skim over: the ...
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credits as being the root of many of the
problems that we as a nation have today. It is refreshing to see a book
that spends space based proportionately around the people that lived this
history. When Columbus arrived on the Island of Haiti, there were 39 men on
board his ships compared to the 250,000 Indians on Haiti. If the white race
accounts for less than two hundredths of one percent of the island's
population, it is only fair that the natives get more than the two or three
sentences that they get in most history books. Zinn cites population
figures, first person accounts, and his own interpretation of their effects
to create an accurate and fair depiction of the first two and a half
centuries of European life on the continent of North America.
The core part of any history book is obviously history. In the
first three chapters of the book, Zinn presents the major historical facts
of the first 250 years of American history starting from when Christopher
Columbus's Niña, ...
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had
done. They were outnumbered, and while, with superior firearms, they
could massacre the Indians, they would face massacre in return. They
could not capture them and keep them enslaved; the Indians were tough,
resourceful, defiant, and at home in these woods, as the transplanted
Englishmen were not.
"White servants had not yet been brought over in sufficient
quantity.... As for free white settlers, many of them were skilled
craftsmen, or even men of leisure back in England, who were so little
inclined to work the land that John Smith... had to declare a kind of
martial law, organize them into work gangs, and force them into the
fields for survival.....
...
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"Zinn's A People's History Of The United States Of America." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 19 Sep. 2005. Web. 4 Nov. 2025. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Zinns-Peoples-History-United-States-America/33519>
"Zinn's A People's History Of The United States Of America." Essayworld.com. September 19, 2005. Accessed November 4, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Zinns-Peoples-History-United-States-America/33519.
"Zinn's A People's History Of The United States Of America." Essayworld.com. September 19, 2005. Accessed November 4, 2025. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Zinns-Peoples-History-United-States-America/33519.
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