An Enjoyable Bromide

This book is a necessary book, not because the reader should agree with all of Howard Zinn's ideas--he occasionally drifts off into ranting, especially in his chapter on the Clinton presidency---but because Zinn poses explanations for events in US history that are plausible. The idea that the top one percent of US society has since the inception of this country held its position by maintaining divisions among those below it makes sense given the current distribution of wealth in this country.

What strikes me as unconvincing is his claim that the slightly privileged (mostly middle-class whites) have been used as a buffer against potential concerted action by society's losers. He provides evidence that suggests that this might be the case (uncited eveidence, as this is a history written for a wide audience), but I didn't see conclusive proof of the grand conspiracy against the downtrodden. In many cases, Zinn quotes three of four people whose cases might mean they were victims of calculated exploitation.

The value of this book, in my eyes, is as a corrective of the great men, great country interpretation of US history that I was fed in middle school and high school. Every society, after all, is made up of a small minority of winners and a mass of losers. What Zinn does is that, by strongly suggesting that the US is no different than elsewhere, he deflates the notion that this is a special land.

The culture that might be considered an anomoly to what he sees in the US was the pre-Columbus Native American culture, which held most everything in common and was ignorant of monetary culture. So in a sense, Zinn weeps for a lost, ireetrievable past.

This a book that every educated person should know about and enjoy reading--for Zinn is a fine writer. It needs to be part of the discussion of US history.