This book changed me from being a "conservative" to a "liberal"....

[zipplewrath]

38. Ha!

I can only imagine.

Quite honestly, I don't think Zinn makes a good "high school" history text. A bit too much preaching and politics in it for that. Don't get me wrong, I think it has the basic CONTENT that is needed. The presentation could use some adjusting.

The reality is that a big part of the problem with high school history is that it is intended less as a history course and more of a civics course, with some anthropology thrown in for context. You can't understand our culture, or our government, if you don't have some knowledge of where it all came from. Zinn does a good job of exploring and explaining the role of the population on our history, and de-emphasizes the whole "great leaders and military campaigns" approach, which tends to distort our history. Our "great leaders" responded to the people, they rarely actually "lead" them. The continental congress got drug kicking and screaming into the American Revolution, by the "regular people" of the northern colonies. Franklin "followed" the people into the idea of independence. He spend alot of time in London trying to find a way to stay IN the british empire, while the people were quickly rejecting that idea at all.

Zinn does a good job of illustrating the peoples role in driving events, and the tendency of those with economic and civil power to try to thwart them. And that has to be understood in order to be an intelligent "citizen". I just felt that Zinn didn't emphasize the "success" of the people in ultimately "triumphing" over the economic powers that be. He speaks in more historical terms, and a high school class probably needs a touch more "civics" in it, and maybe some anthropology thrown in.