A People's History of the United States

qtegirl wrote:

All you need to do is read the introduction to the book and Zinn admits that he's biased. He'll tell you right off... you don't have to guess his intent, he tells you in the first few pages of the book.

The point is that all history books are biased. The author chooses what information he's going to include, what he's going to highlight, what he's going to mention just in passing and what he's going to omit. The difference is that they won't admit they are biased and they'll pass their book off as "objective."

Zinn doesn't do that... you know what you're getting.

know1 wrote:

Maybe so, but doesn't it really reduce the effectiveness of any of his arguments to admit that he's intentionally portraying one side worse than the other? If his point was that there was conquest, death and slavery by the Europeans, then it really doesn't say anything if the other side was doing the same things.

angelica wrote:

Do you acknowledge the fact that there are historical dates and facts and then we have the interpretation of said events, and the stringing together of, or the narration of such events as well? Do you recognize that the interpretation and narration of any event is a highly subjective endeavor?

sponger wrote:

C'mon now. It's not like Americans are brainwashed into thinking that europeans just shook hands with the indians and everything was cool from there. I can remember in elementary school learning about the trail of tears and how the indians really took it up the ass from american settlers. Then when I was old enough to watch R rated movies, I saw Dances with Wolves. In High Plains Drifter, we see that Indian family being treated like dogshit in the general store. So, I just don't see what all the hooplah is about. It's common knowledge. What more do people want? The Indians have their casinos. I met some Indians one night who told me that they sit on their assess and collect over 60K/yr in gambling revenues just because they have tribal blood in them. Is that not reparation?

Saturnal wrote:

What's not common knowledge is the genocide of the natives. That was never taught in my classes anyways. The Trail of Tears is just a small part of what happened. The settlers didn't just kick natives off their lands. They slaughtered them in huge numbers.

At the very least, I think they should be able to do what they want with the small amount of reserved land they have left. I'm sure they'd rather be in our position without casinos than the position they're in now.

And allowing natives to run casinos on their own lands (not ours) is not reparations.

know1 wrote:

How do you "own" lands? Who owned them before the "native Americans"? How did they take possession?

Collin wrote:

liberal:
(of a political party or a country) believing in or allowing more personal freedom and a development towards a fairer sharing of wealth and power within society

I never understood how people can consider this something bad, especially Christians.

citizen_drew wrote:

Two. So I pick up a copy and start reading, get all the way to page 7 where there is a passage that reads...

Thus began the history, five hundred years ago, of the European invasion of the Indian settlements in the Americas. That beginning, when you read Las Casas-even if his figures are exaggerations- is conquest, ,slavery, death.

Yeah that's not a typo on my part, regarding the comma before slavery, and the word death is highlighted... looks almost like it was done in pen.
Anyways, just curious if I have a special edition as there is no other typos or marks in the book...or did "psychos in love" break into my apt and do his own editing on the book...hmmm.

Can anyone confirm? I'm hoping I have a special edition...