A People’s History of the United States: Abridged Teaching Edition | Howard Zinn, Kathy Emery, and Ellen Reeves

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A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
Abridged Teaching Edition

Howard Zinn

Teaching materials by Kathy Emery and Ellen Reeves

The New Press (Revised and updated ed., August 2003)

Paper • ISBN-13: 9780062397348 • US $21.95 • 640 pgs.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States has turned history on its head for an entire generation of readers, telling the nation’s story from the viewpoints of ordinary people—the slaves, workers, immigrants, women, and Native Americans who made their own history but whose voices are typically omitted from the historical record.

The New Press’s Abridged Teaching Edition of A People’s History of the United States has made Zinn’s original text available specifically for classroom use, with a wide range of tools for students to begin a critical inquiry into the American past. The teaching edition includes exercises and teaching materials to accompany each chapter.

**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 black 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 more than forty books.