1) The Vietnamese complaints against the French both in the letters to President Truman and the 1945 Declaration of Independence, were based on the levying of unjust taxes, increasing the poverty of the rural populace, exploitation of mineral and forest resources, massive starvation, and imprisonment of those who would rebel or question their colonial power. In the long list of grievances against the French stated in the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence, “They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty”. Ho Chi Minh stated in his letter to Truman, that it was strictly for humanitarian reasons he need to revolt, and that “two million Vietnamese died of starvation during winter of 1944 and spring 1945”, and that it was “because of starvation policy of French who seized and stored until it controlled all available rice”. These seem like these conditions were a common occurrence at the time in Southeast Asia, where native people under the domination of French colonialism were not treated with dignity and not even given sufficient bare human necessities to live their lives. (Zinn Ch. 18 Pg. XXX)…
Jeffrey Toobin is an American lawyer who is a graduate from Harvard University. Toobin is employed with The New Yorker and CNN. As a writer at The New Yorker magazine Toobin published his article “Cruel and Unusual in the December 23rd & 30th, 2013 issue. In this article Jeffrey Toobin justifies his opinion on the death penalty.…
“Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress” from A People’s History of the United States. By Howard Zinn…
Manifest Destiny gave reason to go to the West for opportunists. The more common name for these opportunistic Americans were industrialists. These people came on the rise as Robber Barons. What would become household names were simply paving their ways towards success in these days. This brand of people became a part of American culture, forever changing it and embellishing their names within it, such as Rockefeller, Standford, Gould, Morgan, and Carnegie. These people carved out industrialization in the name of America through their immense fortunes in banking, coal, and oil. This would be the era of the establishment of the multinational corporation.…
Howard Zinn covers early Native American civilization in North America and the Bahamas, the genocide and slavery committed by the crew of Christopher Columbus, and the violent colonization by early settlers. While Paul Johnson stated that “the creation of the United States of America is the greatest of all human adventures”. Their points of views are completely 2 different stories.…
The Late Howard Zinn is a very respectable historian. He is very bold and is willing to state things that cause quite a bit of controversy. Throughout one’s youth we go on learning history in anecdotes and learning important facts such as dates and memorization of legal documents; however Zinn takes a very crucial look at small events and also takes note of who the founding fathers were and what they really wanted.…
How do the stories of American history that are told over time influence the development of society?…
Tindall, George Brown & Shi, David Emory.: America: A Narrative History Ninth Edition Volume II. Norton & Company, Inc. New York, New York 2013…
Zinn shares his thoughts on the classism carried over to America. Zinn unsurprisingly sides with the poor people who traveled to America out of sheer desperation. Zinn’s main point seems to be that the nation of the U.S. was built on the backs of all the people who were taken advantage of: the poor, the black slaves, and the indians.…
Howard Zinn takes an interesting side when it comes to Columbus and his exploration in A People's History of the United States. While others praise Columbus for what he discovered, Zinn condemns him and attempts to shed light on what treacheries that where committed during the explorations. His focus on the more negative outcomes causes a shift in perspective than most are used to and shows details that many historians may have left out or simply glossed over.…
Zinn’s reoccurring stories of disagreement concerning the people’s outlook of the war are particularly effective in supporting his argument against industrialism and power during the Great War. Since American’s live in a current society that wholeheartedly backs the freedom of individualism and expressionism, his argument paves a direct path of progress and comparison…
In Howard Zinn’s book, Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice, Chapter 1 entitled, “Introduction: American Ideology,” begins with a discussion of a few instances in history where groups of people believed that other races and social classes were inferior to others (Zinn 1). The end result of these instances was that many, if not all, of the inferior people were killed (Zinn 1). From these occurrences, Zinn concludes that our thinking does not merely spark debates, but ultimately is a variable of life and death (Zinn 1). He also believes that although we live in a democratic country, the ideas of ethical behavior that were formulated by our forefathers has condemned us to accept them as right, without questioning why they are right (Zinn 3). These ideas were not framed by a group of conspirators, nor were they accidental; these ideas were a result of natural selection in which ideas were encouraged, financed, and pushed forward by those who were in power or by those who had great influence on the general public (Zinn 3). Although these beliefs were written off as correct, Zinn believes that if we decide to reexamine these beliefs, and see that they are not “natural” ideas, we have come to a major turning point: we are examining and confronting American ideology (Zinn 5).…
Have you ever thought about the explicit details that went into the creation of America? Slavery and the Making of America, written by James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton uses facts and stories to portray the life of slaves, and the evolution of slavery over several decades, and its effect on America today. The title of this book, Slavery and the Making of America is a great leeway into the authors’ main thesis of the book; “Slavery was, and continues to be, a critical factor in shaping the United States and all of its people. As Americans, we must understand slavery’s history if we are ever to be emancipated from its consequences,” (Horton). Throughout the six chapters in this book, the authors’ go into explicit details on what actions from both white Americans and African slaves led to the Civil War, the abolition of slavery and America as it is today.…
What is America? This question is posed all throughout history and even in books. In the average history book America is depicted as this place where everything is “happy go lucky”. But there are many underlying factors such as racism and sexism. Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. Sexism is defined as prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. The three books that will be talked about throughout this paper will be The Awakening, Black Boy and The House on Mango Street.…
According to Freudian theory, violence is a basic human instinct, described as a redirection of our self-destructive impulses onto others. The history of humanity and its primitive relations to violence may provide insight on whether or not violence is, in fact, human nature, or if it is a learned behavior. By exploring one 's childhood and family life, it 's possible to point out potential causes for excessively violent behavior. As well, the society we live in may serve as a catalyst for violence among its habitants. By using anthropology, psychology and sociology it is possible to discover what causes humans to be violent creatures.…