Hey guys
I just bought this book on Amazon
Is it any good?
Yes.
Why would you ask if a book was good after you bought it?
>>44350
>I just bought this book on Amazon
Why?
>Is it any good?
If you like black and white/heroes and villains narratives of history from a leftist perspective, sure. If you want an actual, well researched history of the United States, look elsewhere. For that I would recommend the Oxford histories of America.
>>44350
No, it's pretty much just standard leftist propaganda.
>>44350
It's great if you're into communist propaganda. Otherwise it's a bit tiresome and heavily reliant on secondary sources.
>>44350
It's worth a read just to understand the narrative which has seeped into almost every academic institution today. Just note that it is extremely cherry picked, and was written by a guy who thought the communist party wasn't extreme enough.
It's interesting to say the least. Essentially all history is written by the winners - consider this history written by the losers of history.
If you're aware of what it is then you should be able to enjoy it fine.
I preferred 1493 to A Peoples History of the United States.
>>44350
It's meh. The concept is great, and there's some interesting shit in there, but like many anons have said, Zinn couldn't keep it from being a dubiously-cited soapbox in many places
>>44416
At least you can talk
>>45934
/thread
>>46034
>If you're aware of what it is then you should be able to enjoy it fine.
Most people here don't know how to read for bias and expect historical works to be objective.
Zinn is an adequate primer. The footnotes are better than the text, as with every populist monograph that is effectively textbook.
A beginning reader of history could do much worse.
>>46219
objectively one could count on more than one person to look at a group of ducks and count the same number of ducks
how does one rely on more than one person looking at a series of occurrences unfolding in real time, taking account of actions and motivations of all actors, and come up with the same description of events?
>>46208
>The footnotes are better than the text
What footnotes, his citations are sparse and rarely get more specific than secondary sources.
Also, the book was written in 1980, most of the scholarship that he actually does cite has been made obsolete by newer research.
>>46219
It's not a question of biased or unbiased. From the selection of facts through to writing the final product, all history contains biases.
However, some works, like this one, are blatantly political documents, which mean rather than being investigative and providing original analysis, it just pushes a particular ideological line.
>>46219
You look at who wrote the text, in what circumstances, what the purposive nature of the text was, and what the unpurposed nature of the text was.
Then you examine the text itself, does it make coherent arguments. Is the evidentiary selection good. What is left in? What is left out?
You assume the author has an ideological position and a methodological position. To what extent does the ideology dominate the methodology, or the methodology the ideology?
Do conclusions follow from premises, or were premises constructed to produce conclusions.
You get a feel for what the text is and who the "author" as a mythical construct is, then you reread the text with this awareness looking deeply for flaws.
In Zinn's case the popular nature of the work, and the attempt to produce a history from below, are the major biases. As is the reliance on secondary sources. (Historians privilege archival reading as the "original" act of scholarship).
Then you go read reviews of the work in the scholarly press and see what other historians think about it. Was it okay at the time? Is it now outdated? Who should you read instead?
>>46219
Like >>46311said, it's pretty much impossible to be completely objective when dealing with events that revolve around people.
That said, if you can be pretty certain that the author is 'trying' to be objective, it's a good start. Also look at the tone they use, how they frame issues they're presenting, and what they view as the most important facts contributing to the issue
>>46336
35 years isn't that long a time. The narrative turn and transnationalism are both fads.
>>46311
Is that not equally susceptible to incorrect interpretation?
What if all accounts agree on some distorted version of history?
Is that to be the assumed historical reality until some later criticism/appeal?
>>46394
This sounds very intensive, which I know is not really a complaint.
I have no problems focusing and involving myself in things, but history seems to vast to approach broader topics if I involve myself in the minutia of qualitatively assessing each source.
Perhaps there is no easy solution, but I want to find some simplified means of removing subjective interpretation such that a layperson like myself could do so.
>>46557
The field of labor history, which Zinn focuses much of his narrative on, has advanced considerably since then and new scholarship has provided a much more nuanced and complex account of the events he describes in a very black and white way.
so what book on american history should i get instead?
>>46659
About 100 various titles. Ask a grad student at your local university if you can borrow their field lists.
>>46659
Earlier anon recommended this series:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_History_of_the_United_States
I haven't read them, but they look pretty solid. Several of them have won Pulitzer Prizes in History.
>>46590
>but I want to find some simplified means of removing subjective interpretation such that a layperson like myself could do so.
Nobody can remove subjective interpretation from reading texts.
The more you read the more easily you identify bias. One project is to read outdated historiography with a clear ideological perspective as it is easier to read the bias. I know I'm recommending this to tears today, but Hammond & Hammond's series on Labourers is great for this. They are Labourite fabian socialists who love the labouring classes, but don't believe in a Marxist class structure. They were overly reliant on government reporting, but the length of the books and close focus means that it is their narrative, rather than their use of sources, that is most outdated.
They lack sophisticated theoretical tools that modern historians have and fall back on "popular beliefs" from the early 20th century when making their interpretations.
>>46632
And I'd still be hard pressed to recommend a general summary on US labour history after Zinn. The detailed contemporary work is often beyond the comprehension of our engineer friend who needs to become acquainted with "lies for children" as the science educators describe the "electron shell" model. He could do with a pedagogic approximation rather than being dumped straight into orbitals.
>>46208
I agree, and hey - Zinn is probably gonna be a lot more objective than the Stormfront blogs that seem to inform a sizeable amount of posters here lol
