The Twentieth Century: A People's History - Howard Zinn

   2007; 512 pages.  Full Title: The Twentieth Century: A People’s History.  New Author? : Yes.  Genres : US History; Non-Fiction; World History.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    The image shown to the left notwithstanding, the complete title of this book, as given by Amazon, is: The Twentieth Century: A People’s History.  But what exactly is meant by “A People’s History”, and how does it differ from the hero-centric, “America-the-Perfect” version we all were taught in public schools when growing up?  Well, Howard Zinn is the author, so we’ll let him explain it.

 

    “I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees, of the Civil War as seen by the New York Irish, the Mexican War as seen by the deserting soldiers of Scott’s army, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, of the Spanish-American War as seen by the Cubans, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by the black soldiers on Luzon, the Gilded Age as seen by southern farmers, the First World War as seen by socialists, the Second World War as seen by pacifists, the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America.”  (loc. 94).

 

    Well, now.  I think Howard Zinn’s approach to History might be quite eye-opening..

 

What’s To Like...

    The Twentieth Century: A People’s History is a huge excerpt from Howard Zinn’s 1980 magnum opus A People’s History of the United States.  It encompasses Chapters 11-23, which deal with the time period from the 1890s through the 1970s, and so is essentially the latter half of that book.  Zinn then updated things with two new chapters which close out the 1990s.  Later on, that pair of chapters were also added back into A People’s History of the United States.

 

    The book is divided into 14 chapters, plus a prologue.  The chapters are:

01: The Empire and the People (Land-grabbing from Spain)

02: The Socialist Challenge (The rise of unions and the heyday of the Socialist party)

03: War is the Health of the State (World War 1)

04: Self-Help in Hard Times (The Great Depression)

05: A People’s War (WW2, the Korean War, the Bay of Pigs)

06: Or Does It Explode? (The Black Civil Rights Movement)

07: The Impossible Victory (Vietnam)

08: Surprises (Feminist and Native American Movements, Prison Riots)

09: The Seventies: Under Control?  (Watergate, a great Recession)

10: Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus (Iran-Contra, Desert Storm)

11: The Unreported Resistance (Protests of Nukes, Reagan, Iraq war, Columbus Day)

12: The Coming Revolt of the Guards (Zinn’s vision and hope for the future)

13: The Clinton Presidency (Protests in the 1990s)

14: The 2000 Election and the “War on Terrorism” (how the Gore/Bush election was stolen)

 

    It needs to be recognized that politically, Howard Zinn was a Socialist.  As such, he is unimpressed with both the Democratic and Republican presidents and parties, viewing the two parties as pretty much the same, particularly when it comes to Capitalism and Imperialism.

 

    The book is chock full of interesting history tidbits.  I enjoyed learning about “Bootleg Coal” and the birth of the CIO labor union.  I never knew (or had since forgotten) that Native Americans "liberated" Alcatraz Island in 1969 and claimed it for their own.  The “Rules for Female Teachers” in chapter 2 were eye-opening and I was surprised to learn that Eugene Debs, the perennial Socialist candidate for president way back when, spent 32 months in prison for violating the “Espionage Act”.

 

    It was fun to become reacquainted with  various Americans who have gradually faded from memory: Joseph McCarthy, Rosa Parks, Aldous Huxley, the brothers Philip and Daniel Berrigan, Shirley Chisolm, Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, and many more.  I was amazed to learn that the author Jack London and the activist Helen Keller were both deeply associated with the Socialist Party.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.4/5 based on 84 ratings and 47 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.16/5 based on 1,120 ratings and 80 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    For the United States to step forward as a defender of helpless countries matched its image in American high school history textbooks, but not its record in world affairs.  It had instigated a war with Mexico and taken half of that country.  It had pretended to help Cuba win freedom from Spain, and then planted itself in Cuba with a military base, investments, and rights of intervention.  It had seized Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and fought a brutal war to subjugate the Filipinos.  It had “opened” Japan to its trade with gunboats and threats.  (…) It had sent troops to Peking with other nations, to assert Western supremacy in China, and kept them there for over thirty years.  (loc. 2234)

 

    From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country—and failed.  When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.

    In the course of that war, there developed in the United States the greatest antiwar movement the nation had ever experienced, a movement that played a critical part in bringing the war to an end.  (loc. 3405)

 

Kindle Details…

    The Twentieth Century currently sells for $12.49 at Amazon.  Howard Zinn has several dozen more e-books at Amazon, almost all of which fall into the genres of Politics and/or History, and range in price from $5.99 to $17.99.  There are several other authors who write history books with the “People’s History” slant, including A People’s History of the World by Chris Harman which right now goes for $10.99, which may well be my next venture into this sub-genre.

 

“When the guns of war become a national obsession, social needs inevitably suffer.” (Martin Luther King Jr.)  (loc. 3285)

    There’s not much to quibble about in The Twentieth Century: A People’s History, provided you understand where Howard Zinn stands politically.  But it did seem like, as the book made its way towards present times, historical accuracy started morphing into the author’s wishful thinking.

 

    This was especially evident in chapter 13, where Howard Zinn tediously recounts all sorts of minor protests in the 1990s, making it sound like there was civil unrest of similar magnitude to what was seen in the 1900s decade and again the 1950s.  That simply isn’t true, the unions at the close of the 20th century were pitifully weak and the Socialists had long faded into being a fringe party.  Zinn’s rationale as to why the Reagan/Bush electoral landslides don’t count is also rather weak.

 

    But perhaps this was inevitable, since the closer “history” comes to being “current events”, the more speculative it inherently becomes.  For example, if I were to try to write the history of the Covid pandemic and the 2016/2020 presidential elections today, I am certain that in 20 years it will be found to have lots of inaccuracies.

 

    9 Stars.  Overall, it was really nice to see the ordinary people get the recognition they deserve for the shaping of American history events.  Even growing up, I enjoyed learning how things actually went down instead of the whitewashed history we were all fed in junior and senior high school.  Thank you, Howard Zinn, for making the term “People’s History” familiar to those readers who aren't historians.  I will be on the lookout for more of your books.