Oppression and Class warfare Exposed in Dr. Howard Zinn’s A People’s Hi

Dr. Howard Zinns A Peoples account of the joined States might bebetter titled A Proletarians History of the United States. In the number 1three chapters Zinn looks at not only the memorial of the conquerors,rulers, and leaders but also the history of the enslaved, theoppressed, and the led. Like every the Statesn History book covering the timeperiod of 1492 until the early 1760s, A Peoples History tells thestory of the discovery of America, early resolution by Europeanpowers, the governing of these colonies, and the rising discontent ofthe colonists towards their leaders. Zinn, however, stresses the role ofa number of groups and ideas that most books neglect or skim over the rent of the Native Americans that had their numbers reduced by up to90% by European invasion, the equality of these tidy sums in many regardsto their European counter region, the importation of slaves into Americaand their unspeakable travel conditions and treatment, the callousbuildup of the agricultural e conomy near these slaves, the discontented colonists whose plight was ignored by the rulingbourgeoisie, and most importantly, the rising rank and racial strugglesin America that Zinn correctly credits as creation the root of many of theproblems that we as a nation have today. It is merry to see a bookthat spends space based proportionately around the people that livedthis history. When capital of Ohio arrived on the Island of Haiti, at that place were39 men on board his ships compared to the 250,000 Indians on Haiti. Ifthe white race accounts for less than deuce hundredths of mavin percent ofthe islands world, it is only fair that the natives get more thanthe two or three sentences that they get in most history books. Zinncites population figures, first person accounts, and his owninterpretation of their effects to create an dead on target and fair depictionof the first two and a half centuries of European life on the continentof North America.The core part of any history bo ok is obviously history. In the firstthree chapters of the book, Zinn presents the major(ip) historical facts ofthe first 250 historic period of American history starting from when ChristopherColumbuss Nia, Pinta, and Santa Maria landed in the Bahamas on October12, 1492. It was there that Europeans and Native A... ...form of rhetoric, concessions, and propaganda calling forloyalty to Americas upper classes and rebellion, first quiet and thenloud, against England. The bind of loyalty was the language ofliberty and equality, which could unite scarcely enough whites to fight aRevolution against England, without ending either slavery or inequality(58). Zinn is absolutely correct in seeing the later(a) motives of ourfounding fathers they realized that splitting from England would begood for them financially, socially, and politically. What they did washarness the peoples anger against them and used it, quite ironically,for their own advancement. Ultimately, for the first 250 years of Americas history, there wasoppression and class warfare on varying scales that are traditionallyignored or unemphasized by traditional history texts, but Zinnmasterfully shows the reader are major and influencial parts of Americanhistory. To ignore the plight of the conquored and oppressed is toignore a part of history that cannot be ignored. Work CitedZinn, Howard, A Peoples History of the United States, New York Harper and Row Publishers, 1980