Howard Zinn Critique

As an activist, anarchist, and self-declared democratic socialist, Howard Zinn admires the American people and their enthusiasm to improve their circumstances through protest and provocation (Zinn, Personal; Zinn, A People’s 9-10). He reflects this throughout A People’s History of the United States, placing emphasis on the plights of minorities, women, and the working class. By doing this, he chronicles the rarely told story of their struggle for equality in a biased, capitalist society. Though the US Constitution promised to “provide for the common deference,” the American government often catered to the will of wealthy businessmen and the male Caucasian elite (Constitutional). Due to the fact that the United States government failed to
Coming from a lower class background in the slums of Brooklyn, Zinn comprehends class struggle and oppression of the poor (Zinn, A People’s 2). He empathetically describes the early years of the New World, in which indentured servants traveled to America in hopes of a better life. On the eight to twelve week passages, many were subject to starvation and disease, sometimes having to resort to cannibalism in order to survive (Zinn, A People’s 43). Once they were in service of their masters, it was common to become victims of beatings and rape (44). Though the Amendment VI of the United States Constitution later gave citizens the right to a trial by an impartial jury, servants were not permitted to serve as jurymen. In an effort to improve their miserable situation, servants made feeble attempts at rebellions, such as the uprising of the Gloucester County servants, which was revealed and never carried out. Large scale revolt was so impractical that servants had to defy their masters individually by physically attacking their masters, running away, or refusing to work (45). About 80% of all indentured servants “died during servitude, returned to England after it was over, or became ‘poor whites’” (qtd in Zinn, A People’s
After the frontier was declared closed in 1890, the United States looked to overseas markets and imperialism. A People’s History of the United States gives various examples of the numerous arguments for territorial expansion. There was a growing surplus of goods following Gilded Age, and businessmen needed foreign trade markets, particularly China, to increase profit margins. They took an interest in Cuba and an “open door” policy that would allow them access to Asia (Zinn A People’s 301). The government also sought Cuba, but for imperialistic reasons; they wanted the United States to become a world power. Meanwhile, Cuba was undergoing a revolution against Spanish tyranny. Many Americans supported this, as it was similar to their own revolution. Newspapers frequently printed reports of Spanish atrocities towards the Cuban people in an effort to invoke further sympathy towards the Cuban cause (“Spanish-American”). One abomination of Spanish rule was the institution of reconcentration camps that held rebels and their sympathizers, and when news of them reached the United States, a nation protected from cruel punishments under the eighth amendment, people were outraged at the Spaniards. This sensationalist journalism manipulated many citizens into believing that a war with Spain was necessary to help the Cuban rebels and supporting the government’s cause. Despite this, a