A Young People's History of the United States brings to US history the viewpoints of workers, slaves, immigrants, women, Native Americans, and others whose stories, and their impact, are rarely included in books for young people.
Volume 1 begins with a look at Christopher Columbus’s arrival through the eyes of the Arawak Indians, then leads the reader through the earliest struggles for workers’ rights, women’s rights, and civil rights during the 18th and 19th centuries. Volume 2 picks the thread up in the early 20th century, covering both World Wars, Vietnam, the Black Rights movement, and ending with the current protests against continued American imperialism. Zinn presents a radical new way of understanding America’s history. In so doing, he reminds readers that America’s true greatness is shaped by our dissident voices, not our military generals.
A Young People's History of the United States is also a companion volume to The People Speak, the film adapted from A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States.
“Zinn has written a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited … the book is an excellent antidote to establishment history … While the book is precise enough to please specialists, it should satisfy any adult reader.” —Library Journal
“In many years of searching, we have not found one history book we would recommend to them—until [the] just published A Young People's History of the United States. This is the edition of A People's History that we have all been waiting for.” —Deborah Menkart, executive director, Teaching for Change
“Zinn's work exemplifies an approach to history that is radical, regardless of its subject or geographical location. He tells us the untold story, the story of the world's poor, the world's workers, the world's homeless, the world's oppressed, the people who don't really qualify as real people in official histories. Howard Zinn painstakingly unearths the details that the powerful seek to airbrush away. He brings official secrets and forgotten histories out into the light, and in doing so, changes the official narrative that the powerful have constructed for us. He strips the grinning mask off the myth of the benign American Empire. To not read Howard Zinn is to do a disservice to yourself.” —Arundhati Roy
“[Zinn] gives a real insight into history that is often left out of textbooks. Highly recommended.” —Socialist Review
