The People's History & the Cold War

[Joseph Tracy]

I've read the Peoples History twice and it does what it set out to do. It punctures the propaganda of by and for the big shots and their grand words and their self serving  ideas of inevitability and progress, Ideas and people that sound less grand when seen through the eyes of the ones subjected to their power.   Zinn gets at history as lived by the people who fought  for and  lost and won a chance at making bearable their own real and often overlooked  part in American history. The people's history  makes  humanly accessible the suffering of those who were crushed,  treating their stories not  as some necessary tragedy, but also as a direct result of  the frequent and active betrayal of every moral and political value invoked by the national enterprise. 

Howard Zinn also writes well with an engaging clarity, an ear for important original sources, a skill for condensing while still offering detail  and nuance, and often with wry humor. He was a warm and often funny speaker. His personal career and  his courage of conviction have touched many lives including a number of famous students.
The  continued growth in popularity of Zinn's   major book is understandably criticized by historians who don't like their omissions or propaganda or lesser skill as writers revealed by contrast.