I chose to read A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn for my choice novel. Many of you may say, "eww, a history book," and yes, I would agree that it is filled with boring history excerpts and stories that may not seem relevant, but overall it was a fabulous read. Best of all, it explains why certain things are the way they are today.
Zinn didn't write the conventional white man's history book, he wrote American History through the eyes of the groups of people that were oppressed throughout our nation's relatively short, yet brutal 235 years: African-Americans, Native-Americans, women, Irish-Immigrants, Italian-Immigrants, factory workers, poor whites, gay Americans, and Latin-Americans. He told stories of brutality and discrimination that almost breaks the reader's heart.
The most surprising facts that Zinn presented, in my opinion, were all of the horrible and inhumane things that our government did to Native-Americans. I had always wondered why the stories of Natives were in the beginnings of our history books but never in the middle or the end, but now I have figured out why -- they were never part of our society, they were just pushed onto reservations out west and forgotten about.
I was also very surprised about how far back our economic unrest trails. Maybe it's because I was born in '93, but it always seemed to me that this recession is a newer problem, but as I read further and further into the book, I found that we never really had any economic stability...ever. The richest one percent has always controlled a majority of our funds, and it made me think: if this gap between rich and poor hasn't been fixed in 235 years, will it ever be?
Lastly, it was really unsettling reading about how much corruption and hypocrisies our government has been guilty of. For example, the U.S. over and over again stopped rebels in different countries from winning their independence from their unfair and tyrannical governments just so OUR economy wouldn't suffer. I'm sorry, but didn't we win our independence from Britain? We should understand more than any other country what it's like to have a ruthless government ruling over you. The bombing of Hiroshima is also a great example. A day before that attack was put into action, the government had received a letter from the Japanese government saying that they wanted some have some peace talks to try to work everything out, but the government ordered the attack anyway and then claimed that the letter had gotten lost when a media source had outed them.
The point of this book was certainly to bring the horror stories of our history into the light and to criticize the government for oppressing so many people, however I don't believe it was written to turn people against the United States government. Zinn just wanted to bring the wrongs of this country to the government's attention in hopes of change for the future. Even with its many faults, I still love this country, and I believe that it can become one of the greatest countries the world has ever seen if it can finally sincerely mean the words that our forefathers wrote for us, "We the people."
Sounds like quite the read--hearing the oppressed's perspective on history is an opportunity we rarely get.
ReplyDeleteI must disagree with Zinn's idea that the U.S. failing to help revolutions in foreign countries is always a bad thing--our nation often gets too involved with the affairs of others. In my opinion America should not have strayed so far from George Washington's policy of neutrality. The French Revolution of 1800 was very similar to ours, yet the United States didn't offer help to the lower class because we had to take care of our own interests; we were still a relatively new nation with no guarantee of survival and little foundation to build on. I agree with this decision and wish America would have employed it more often in recent years; sometimes it's better to fix our own problems than meddle in that of others.
This was my back-up book to read, and now I wish I had read it! History books are always written from one side's point of view, and I feel that this book would be especially interesting because it comes from multiple perspectives. It probably was also very unsettling because of how much history books leave out about the errors of the side who is doing the writing. Everyone wants to make themselves look better, so each side probably fills in the gaps that are left blank in normal history books.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good book, I decided not to read a historical non-fiction because we have learend about the U.S. nonstop throughout intermediate, middle and high school. After reading your review I think I still would have been interested by "A Peoples History of the United States". I'm sure it was pretty eye opening at times and I will definetly add it to my list of books to read.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like quite a book with a perspective that is so unique. I agree with you that sometimes history is much more terrifying and terrible if you just change the view you are looking at it from. It is also ironic that the U.S. doesn't try to always help revolutions when we were born from one. On the other hand, I believe this is good. No matter how much power we think we have, we are only looking for trouble if you go and look for a fight every time there is a conflict in the world. The U.S. shouldn't have to get involved as much as we do.
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