Book Review: A People’s History of the American Empire
Jul 4th, 2008 by jeremy
This is book twenty-seven in 52 books in 52 weeks
First of all, I’m sorry for the quick review this week. We are leaving on vacation, and I had to write this two days early not knowing what kind of internet access we’d have. All the other posts from Wednesday to Friday were pre-written as well, so hopefully they aren’t full of mistakes.
Howard Zinn is the author of the excellent People’s History of the United States, and this is a graphical adaptation of much of the material in the book. It’s similar to the book Lies My Teacher Told Me, going through different events and talking about what most of us have been taught about history is usually full of factual errors.
He discusses the many events that have led the United States to go to war, how big business reacted when workers decided to form unions, and different cultural battles throughout time. Like many problems, almost everything seems to come down to money. While giving a mostly upbeat look at the United States, he doesn’t shy away from showing how we used things like the belief that God gave us this land as an excuse to kill native Americans, enslave blacks and put Japanese people into prison camps.
It’s simple to follow unlike some of his previous books that spend chapters on each area, the art is mediocre, but not a distraction. I was interested from beginning to end. The book isn’t worried about showing former leaders of the country as less-than-perfect, something I think we usually forget.
Zinn weaves his own life story through the book, which isn’t as interesting, but gives some contrast between what is happening all around the country, and how it the affects him.
Rating B
My other 52 book reviews are here
Other people doing the 52 books in 52 weeks thing
- Jamie reviews No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
- Heliologue reviews The Ten-Cent Plague by David Hadju
- Nick reviews The Manticore by Robertson Davies
Other people reviewing A People’s History of the American Empire
Mediamouse thinks it’s great for people wanting an unnofficial history
Dave thinks it’s less-than-compelling
I watched the video all the way through. For the first time, I heard “manifest destiny” and immediately thought of “imminent domain,” what Walmart uses to excuse the removing people from their homes when they’re in the way of a new Walmart development.
We’ve read a lot of the same books! (In the last year, Flight Vol. 2, Born Standing Up, Persepolis and the DMZ series.) I aim to read 50 books a year but am kind of out of the loop when it comes to reading blogs.
Those are all great. I’ve read a lot of graphic novels this year because I use them to fill in those weeks I haven’t had time to read a full book.