I finished A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present by Howard Zinn a bit over a week ago now.  It’s a rather lengthy read, and, consumed in audiobook form as I did, it amounted to more than 35 hours of listening.  I could use a lot of superlatives to describe how I feel about the book, though “essential” is probably, I think, the most useful.

It’s probably important to first disclose that A People’s History is leaning quite far to the left on the political spectrum.  I don’t personally consider that to be a problem, though surely it will be enough to shutter its pages for some.  Perhaps what’s more important than right or left is in how Zinn re-framed the discussion, not in terms of Democrat or Republican, for instance, but in terms of human beings vs. establishments of power.

With any political discussion it can be so easy to come to roadblocks, as they’re relegated to the regions of our brains associated with faith or religion.  The “I’m right, you’re wrong” doesn’t have much of a place, however, when it’s a matter of what our fellow humans have and continue to endure purely as a matter of what we do to ourselves.  Namely, it is easy to cast off a corporation as a necessarily bad entity, but only when we forget that most all of these parts of our modern society are runs by other humans, other people.  I find it most apt, then, that Zinn terms the title of the book the way he did.

Regardless of affiliation, of agreeing or disagreeing, one element which is quite clear from reading this book is that many of the same things that we struggle with today has really been with us for decades, and centuries.  War, troubled economies, strife, have all happened before, and likely will all happen again.  Even so, it is nearly impossible to even think of starting a proper discussion without first knowing the history of where we’ve all been.  Zinn provides context for how we arrived at our current day situation, and he speaks plainly, understandably, and directly in most all respects.

Theme: war

Clearly, one theme which comes up again and again is that of war.  As Zinn writes, it is much easier for America as a nation to ignore our personal troubles, our loss of rights and power, when faced with an enemy.  Indeed, our current military budget is stunningly egregious and as of today shows no signs of ever dwindling.  If we’re to fight, we must stand together, with our backs to each other and our neighbors.

If anything, our current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan makes more sense with the context that we as a nation have been pulling the same kind of story for centuries.  We as people lost ground, power, before the Bush tax cuts and before the Patriot Act.  It’s easy to get caught in the moment, and much harder to step back and take a closer look at where we’ve gone.

War, about the most horrific things we can imagine, takes precedence in our minds.  Like white noise, it can drown out all other concerns and make us fixate on the lack of other discernible information.  Furthermore, it’s not been new practice to conflate supporting our fellow citizens who fight with not supporting the fact that they are being put through these difficulties at the hand of our governments.  It’s all happened before, and it will happen again, especially when we fail to see the recurring patterns.

Theme: loss of power, economy

The next big theme I took away from this history is in the continual concentration of money and power to a small group of people.  In recent times, the numbers are staggering: the top 1% holds 38% of the private wealth in the US.  Use Google, find some more numbers for yourself.  Anything that will show the numbers ought to explain well enough that those who have wealth are keeping more of it, to the extent that it is a serious detriment to the rest of our society.

Zinn speaks to criminality, taxes, and infighting between the lower and “middle” class.  Without opportunities, without other options, it’s rather easy to see that there is a large portion of our society that is discontented, and America’s response has largely been to put those people into jail and prison without addressing the root causes.  Moreover, those at the top tiers have been able to play the middle class against the poor, speaking towards “law and order,” and putting an increased tax burden on those who can’t afford it, rather than to the billionaires who gets cuts to their obligations with increasing frequency.

As to taxes, the numbers are again staggering.  The amount of money given to corporations compared to the amounts given to the poor are completely out of line.  The former receive orders of magnitude more than the latter, yet the debate is constantly focused on “welfare” for the poor.  If we were to arrange the debate more logically, it would be discussing welfare for corporations, vs. helping poor people by relatively small contributions.

Political parties, complicity

What might be interesting to some is that while Zinn’s book is certainly leftist, that by no means encourages or endorses what our culture has accepted as “left,” what is now the Democratic party.  Indeed, Zinn argues that both parties offer only small differences at this point in our time, both working to uphold our history and the status quo which funds our economy and keeps in place that which impairs so many of our people.

Takeaway

There’s clearly much more to say, though I’m already getting carried away and hopefully have already made enough arguments as to why it’s important to dive deeper into these fundamentals issues.  I feel that my eyes have been opened in the experience of going through this particular book, and that it is unbelievable that Zinn’s narrative is not more central a piece in every American’s education.  While there is a lot to take in and many pages to read, the text itself is not difficult and each page provides an important building block in understanding where we’ve been to arrive at our current day.  I can’t recommend strongly enough that everyone start in, and experience at least part of the journey I’ve now happily completed.