Zinn - A Peoples History of the United States

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

www.harpercollins.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Canada

2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada

www.harpercollins.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive

Rosedale 0632

Auckland, New Zealand

www.harpercollins.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF, UK

www.harpercollins.co.uk

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

195 Broadway

New York, NY 10007

www.harpercollins.com

[Howard Zinn] wrote to the people, for the people: My intention is... to light a flame under the rest of us. And that is exactly what Howard Zinn didin the dozens of books he wrote and edited, in the hundreds of speeches he gave, in his teaching and activism, and, later in life, in his role as the muse of history and politics for a new generation of freethinkers and organizers.

The Nation

Zinn was best known, of course, as the author of A Peoples History of the United States, which since its publication in 1980 has introduced millions of readers to his vision of the American past. Few historians manage to reach a broad nonacademic audience. Those who do generally write Nietzsches monumental history, works that celebrate great men (the founding fathers, Abraham Lincoln) or heroic events (the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, World War II). Zinns history was different. Through A Peoples History and various spinoffs... Zinns public learned about ordinary Americans struggles for justice, equality, and power. I have long been struck by how many excellent students of history first had their passion for the past sparked by reading Howard Zinn.

Eric Foner

He changed the conscience of a generation. Its hard to imagine how many young peoples lives were touched by his work and his life. Both leave a permanent stamp on how history is understood and the conception of how a decent and honorable life should be lived.

Noam Chomsky

Artists in Times of War

The Bomb

Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order

Emma: A Play

Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian

The Future of History: Interviews with David Barsamian

Howard Zinn on Democratic Education (with Donaldo Macedo)

Howard Zinn on History Howard Zinn on War

Justice in Everyday Life: The Way It Really Works

Just War (with Moises Saman and Gino Strada)

La Guardia in Congress

La Otra Historia de los Estados Unidos

Marx in Soho: A Play on History

New Deal Thought (editor)

Original Zinn: Conversations on History and Politics (with David Barsamian)

Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice

A Peoples History of American Empire (written with Paul Buhle and illustrated by Mike Konopacki)

A Peoples History of the United States, Abridged Teaching Edition

The People Speak: American Voices, Some Famous, Some Little Known (editor)

The Politics of History

Postwar America: 19451971

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

SNCC: The New Abolitionists

The Southern Mystique

Terrorism and War (with Anthony Arnove)

Three Plays: The Political Theater of Howard Zinn

Three Strikes (with Dana Frank and Robin D. G. Kelley)

The Twentieth Century: A Peoples History

Uncommon Sense from the Writings of Howard Zinn

Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal

Voices of a Peoples History of the United States (with Anthony Arnove)

You Cant Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

A Young Peoples History of the United States (adapted by Rebecca Stefoff)

The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy

A previous edition of this book was published in hardcover in 1999 as the Twentieth Anniversary Edition by HarperCollins Publishers.

P.S. is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

A PEOPLES HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. Copyright 1980, 1995, 1998, 1990, 2003 by Howard Zinn. Introduction copyright 2015 by Anthony Arnove. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL MODERN CLASSICS EDITION PUBLISHED 2005.

REISSUED IN HARPER PERENNIAL MODERN CLASSICS 2015.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-06-239734-8 (modern classics edition)

EPub Edition November 2015 ISBN 9780062466679

15 16 17 18 19 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Noah, Georgia, Serena, Naushon, Willand their generation

To my two editors, for their incalculable help: Cynthia Merman of Harper & Row, and Roslyn Zinn.

To Hugh Van Dusen, of HarperCollins, for wonderful help and support throughout the history of this book.

To Rick Balkin, my tirelessly attentive agent and friend.

To Akwesasne Notes, Mohawk Nation, for the passage from Ila Abernathys poem.

To Dodd, Mead & Company, for the passage from We Wear the Mask from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar.

To Harper & Row, for Incident from On These I Stand by Countee Cullen. Copyright 1925 by Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.; renewed 1953 by Ida M. Cullen.

To Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for the passage from I, Too from Selected Poems of Langston Hughes.

To The New Trail, 1953 School Yearbook of the Phoenix Indian School, Phoenix, Arizona, for the poem It Is Not!

To Random House, Inc., for the passage from Lenox Avenue Mural from The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Time by Langston Hughes.

To Esta Seaton, for her poem Her Life, which first appeared in The Ethnic American Woman by Edith Blicksilver, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1978.

To Warner Bros., for the excerpt from Brother Can You Spare a Dime? Lyric by Jay Gomey, Music by E. Y. Harburg. 1932 Warner Bros. Inc. Copyright Renewed. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.

Howard Zinn fundamentally changed the way millions of people think about history with A Peoples History of the United States