Reviews tagging 'Racism'

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

8 reviews

parboiledlentils's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad slow-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery

Moderate: Death, Genocide, Racism, Violence, Police brutality, War, and Deportation

jovanh's review against another edition

informative reflective

4.75

Excellent and informative. It's impossible to tell this kind of story without partiality, but I appreciate the level of research and and how Zinn connected the threads. 

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Suicide, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, War, and Classism

lizziaha's review against another edition

informative

3.75

This book is incredibly dense. It was an expansive overview, and helped me identify which areas of history I am personally most interested in. I certainly learned a lot. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Murder, War, and Classism

Moderate: Police brutality, Fire/Fire injury, and Deportation

jedore's review against another edition

challenging dark informative slow-paced

5.0

"The idea of saviors has been built into th entire (US) culture, beyond politics. We have learned to look to stars, leaders, experts in every field, thus surrendering our own strength, demeaning our own ability, obliterating our lwn selves." 

Well, THAT was hard work! Almost 700 pages of U.S. history, but this time from the perspective of the people, not the elite. 

This book made it abundantly clear how brainwashed so many American citizens have been about the history of their country by a school system that was literally created and designed to churn out obedient citizens. It worked for 52 years on me, but thanks to Howard Zinn, I'm onto them. 

Mr. Zinn is NOT a conspiracy theorist and there's nothing even remotely wacky about this book. He starts in 1492 and ends at the 9/11 debacle, sharing solid evidence, in painful, but necessary, detail, about the true underpinnings of this country and the struggle of the majority of it's citizens for basic survival. The amount of research that went into this book is absolutely mind boggling. 

In short, the elites have been running this country from the start and they not only use, but instigate, racial tension and military "incidents"/wars to protect or expand their power. The majority of laws, constitutional amendments, etc., bought them enough protection to keep doing what they were doing. I finally understand why so many people in other countries, particularly the Middle East, despise us. 

This book illuminated the underlying reason for the nightmare of the past several years, including Covid lockdowns and forced vaccinations, the present day book bans, and abortion flip flops. These are just continued, albeit grander, desperate attempts by the powers that be to retain, and even increase, power.

Though I believe every US citizen should read this book, that's a very tall order. It took me away from more enjoyable reading for almost 2 months and I felt like I was reading a textbook this entire time. That being said, to learn about all of the wars, ONE AFTER THE OTHER, all at once rather than one war at a time, was so eye opening. 

This book made my all-time favorites list, not because it was enjoyable to read, but because of how its knowledge has empowered me. They will fool me no more!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide, Racism, Slavery, Colonisation, War, and Classism

gracieec's review against another edition

challenging dark informative sad

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Confinement, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Ableism, Addiction, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Miscarriage, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Islamophobia, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, and Deportation

rachbake's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Rape, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Murder, and War

emrog's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

5.0

newer additions have more chapters on stuff that happened after 1980 like the Clinton presidency !!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Genocide and Racism

maiagaia's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

This is a great book to get a general overview of American history from a different perspective than most people have learned in school. The writing style is more academic than literary, so it can be pretty dry. It's very low fluff and straight to the point because there's a ton of ground being covered in a relatively short book. It's a great jumping-off point to discover specific eras or organizations that you might want to look into further. The biggest draw back for me is that after the chapter on the Vietnam war, the chapters lost a lot of their detail and focus. For example, chapter 19 "Surprises" covers women's rights movements, prison riots and strikes, Native American protests, and general cultural changes occuring in the younger generation of the time. Each of these could have been their own chapter, or Zinn should have made more of an effort to connect them. Overall, I really enjoyed this read, and I'd recommend it to people just getting into American history.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Racism, and Slavery

It's a history of the United States in all its imperialist glory. Be wary.