The Twentieth Century: A People’s History

CONTACT
ROAM AGENCY

HOME

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
A People’s History

Howard Zinn

HarperCollins / Perennial (February 2003)

Paper • ISBN-13: 9780060530341• US $16.99 • 512 pgs.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Containing just the twentieth-century chapters from Howard Zinn’s bestselling A People’s History of the United States, this revised and updated edition includes two new chapters— covering Clinton’s presidency, the 2000 Election, and the “war on terrorism.”

Highlighting not just the usual terms of presidential administrations and congressional activities, this book provides you with a “bottom-to-top” perspective, giving voice to our nation’s minorities and letting the stories of such groups as African Americans, women, Native Americans, and the laborers of all nationalities be told in their own words.

**PRAISE FOR A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES:**

“Professor Zinn writes with an enthusiasm rarely encountered in the leaden prose of academic history, and his text is studded with telling quotations from labor leaders, war resisters, and fugitive slaves. There are vivid descriptions of events that are usually ignored … A reversal of perspectives, a reshuffling of heroes and villains.”

Eric Foner, The New York Times Book Review

“[A] brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited politically and economically, and whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.”

Library Journal

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) was a historian, playwright, and activist. He wrote the classic A People’s History of the United States, “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those … whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories” (Library Journal). The book, which has sold more than 2.6 million copies and been translated into 23 foreign editions, has become a cultural touchstone, encouraging interest in “people’s histories” in universities and activist meetings alike. In 2009, History aired The People Speak, an acclaimed documentary co-directed by Zinn, based on A People’s History and a companion volume, Voices of a People’s History of the United States. As Noam Chomsky wrote, “Howard Zinn’s work literally changed the conscience of a generation.”

Zinn grew up in a working-class, immigrant household in Brooklyn. At eighteen, he became a shipyard worker and flew bomber missions over Europe during World War II, experiences which helped to shape his opposition to war and his interest in the lives of working people. After attending college under the GI Bill and earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, he taught at Spelman College, a historically African American women’s college, where he became active in the civil rights movement. After being fired by Spelman for his support for student protesters, Zinn became a professor of Political Science at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement in 1988. He wrote over forty books.