People?s History of the United States: Abridged Teaching Edition: Amazon.ca: Howard Zinn: Books

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Book Description

Volume I of the abridged teaching edition of the bestselling history of the United States. Includes teaching materials to accompany each chapter. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

13 Reviews

5 star:		(10)
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Average Customer Review

4.4 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars HOWRD ZINN KNOWS WHATS UP, Oct 14 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: A People's History of the United States (Paperback)

I READ THIS BOOK WITH FULL AGREEMENT. I TOTALLY AGREE WITH DOCTOR ZINN THAT THE VERY IDEAS AND POLICIES OF THIS "NATION" HAVE BEEN BASED IN HATEFUL EVIL AND RACISM. THE FOUNDATIN OF THIS COUNTRY IS OF OPPRESSION AND WE HAVE NOW SEEN IN NEW YORK THAT THE RIGHTEOUSLY OPPRESSED WILL PREVAIL, LIKE PROFESSOR ZINN SAYS. POWER TO THE PEOPLE, NOT THE AMERICAN HATRED!

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2.0 out of 5 stars Episodic, antithetical diatribe - with added questions!, Oct 4 2000

By

Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A People's History of the United States (Paperback)

To those who will read this review: this review was written specifically for the "Abridged Teaching Edition", which is rather different from the full version in both length and content. The type is bigger, the chapters are smaller (thus "abridged"), and at the end of each there is a section of rather simplistic discussion questions (whose idea was this?).

I completely agree with Zinn's thesis, but can't say the same about his approach. This history book is divided into episodic chapters, the only link being their arrangement in chronological order. Some chapters take the detailed, small scale approach, while others aim at the grand scale and describe "general trends" in rather vague terms. In other words, the only logical way to read this book with the goal of learning something is either to read it as a supplement to another text, or already possessing a rich store of knowledge on the subject.

In his approach Zinn reduces every subject into a flat, two-dimensional semblance that reflects his opinion - and he does a fairly good job of engineering everything to fit his opinion. And since his thesis is to focus on the oppressed and the neglected, you should get ready for some really grim history. Nevertheless, there are a few chapters where he seemingly forgets to add the "grimness filter", and what the reader ends up reading is vague, abstract history (as in "Tyranny Is Tyranny").

The idea of adding a questions section to Zinn's book seems laughable and absurd, but, alas, it's there. THESE "QUESTIONS" ARE ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC! They follow the course of the chapter, most of them simply repeating various sentences in question form!

A moderately interesting history book that was deeply hurt by abridgement.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A treasure of a history book, Nov 5 1999

By

Chris Burke (Worldwide Vagabond) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: A People's History of the United States (Paperback)

I read this book as a freshman in college, and loved it. I have bought the book on 3 seperate occasions and each time have given it to someone else to read. I have my own copy that I keep. A great addition to my library.

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