by Howard Zinn, Adapted by Rebecca Stefoff
Seven Stories Press
1/3/2023, paperback
SKU: 9781644212516
A Young People's History of the United States brings to US history the viewpoints of workers, enslaved people, immigrants, women, Black people, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians, and others whose stories, and their impact, are rarely included in books for young people.
Beginning with a look at Christopher Columbus's arrival through the eyes of the Arawak Indians, then leading the reader through the struggles for workers' rights, women's rights, and civil rights during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and ending with the current protests against continued American imperialism, Zinn presents a radical new way of understanding America's history. In so doing, he reminds readers that America's true greatness is shaped by our dissident voices, not our military generals.
A Young People's History of the United States is also a companion volume to The People Speak, the film adapted from A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States.
With contributions by Ed Morales.
Target age: 10 and up
Reviews:
"Zinn has written a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited ... the book is an excellent antidote to establishment history ... While the book is precise enough to please specialists, it should satisfy any adult reader." -- Library Journal
"A Young People's History of the United States offers students a valuable tool to learn outside the textbook." -- Deborah Menkart, executive director, Teaching for Change
"Zinn's work exemplifies an approach to history that is radical, regardless of its subject or geographical location. He tells us the untold story, the story of the world's poor, the world's workers, the world's homeless, the world's oppressed, the people who don't really qualify as real people in official histories. Howard Zinn painstakingly unearths the details that the powerful seek to airbrush away. He brings official secrets and forgotten histories out into the light, and in doing so, changes the official narrative that the powerful have constructed for us. He strips the grinning mask off the myth of the benign American Empire. To not read Howard Zinn is to do a disservice to yourself." -- Arundhati Roy, author of many books, including The End of Imagination, Field Notes on Democracy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and Capitalism: A Ghost Story
"[Zinn] gives a real insight into history that is often left out of textbooks. Highly recommended." -- Socialist Review
About the Contributors:
Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was a historian, playwright, and activist and the author of the bestselling A People's History of the United States, as well as Truth Has a Power of Its Own: Conversations About A People's History. He received the Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction and the Eugene V. Debs Award for his writing and political activism.
Rebecca Stefoff has devoted her career to writing nonfiction books for young readers. Her publications include histories, literary biographies, an encyclopedia of maps, and numerous books on science and environmental issues. She has also adapted a number of landmark works in history and science, including Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee, Charles C. Mann's bestselling 1493, Jill Jonnes's Eiffel's Tower, Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America, and Bruce Watson's Freedom Summer: The Violent Season That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy
Ed Morales is the author of Latinx, The Latin Beat, Living in Spanglish, and Fantasy Island: Colonialism, Exploitation, and the Betrayal of Puerto Rico. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and The Nation, among other national publications. He has also appeared on numerous television programs, is currently an adjunct professor at Columbia University's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. He lives in New York City.