Addressing his trademark reversals of perspective, Zinn--a teacher, historian, and social activist for extra than 20 years--explains, "My point is not this we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for this; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the simple acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but essential cost to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all)--this is still together with us. One reason these atrocities are still together with us is this we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth."
If your last experience of American history was delivered to you by junior high school textbooks--or even if you're a specialist--get ready for the other side of stories you may not even have heard. Together with its vivid descriptions of rarely noted events, A People's History of the United States is necessary reading for anyone who wants to get a fresh look at the rich, rocky history of America.