Book Review: A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn - a podcast by ApocD

The idea is simple: write a history book from the point of view of the people, not the leaders. Although the idea is simple, this book had to have been hard as hell to write. Zinn starts with Columbus' landing in the New World, and from there it's over 600 pages of oppression. The book definitely leans to the left; Zinn readily admits this and justifies it as a counter to all of the history books written from the point of view of the privileged few. Books like this andThe Best Democracy Money Can Buymake me realize how screwed up things are, but leave me without a clue as to what to do about it. I'd say I can use my vote, but Zinn shows this as a means the powerful use to keep the lower classes under control, not to give them any real power.

This is the second time I've read this book, and both times it has pulled me to the left. After the first time I read it, I leaned to the left for a few months and then bounced right back to no man's land. I'm not sure what will happen this time, but I know, at least I think I know, that I'm not in the center. Either the government needs to be in control and take care of people, or we don't need government. So, it's either socialism or Libertarianism for me. I'm so easily swayed, though, I don't know that either of them can last.

As I was reading the book, which took me about 3 weeks, I really started to think that all of U.S. history has just been the rich, although not necessarily always intentionally, using the underprivileged for their own gain. There's a pattern to our history that's a bit sickening: Treat the lower classes like dirt, drive the economy into the ground, start a war, rally the country around the troops, call those who oppose the war traitors, either get out of the war or win the war and assert more influence on the world, scare citizens, increase the military budget, treat the lower classes like dirt, drive the economy into the ground..." After all of the patriotic/nationalist hogwash that we're fed in school, this idea is really eye opening. It's strange, too, that the book speaks against the government, and yet the ideas supported are socialistic. What's an American in Japan to do?

Anyway, this book is highly recommended, just be warned that you'll learn a lot, and I really mean a lot, about labor movements. A lot.

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