A People's History of the United States

Highlights from the Twentieth Century

By: Howard Zinn

Narrated by: Matt Damon, Howard Zinn

Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

For much of his life, historian Howard Zinn has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version taught in schools - with its emphasis on great men in high places - to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace. 

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, Zinn's A People's History of the United States is the only volume to tell America's story from the point of view of - and in the words of - its women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. Here we learn that many of our country's greatest battles - labor laws, women's rights, racial equality - were carried out at the grassroots level, against steel-willed resistance. This edition of A People's History of the United States features insightful analysis of some of the most important events in this country in the past 100 years. 

Featuring a preface and afterword read by the author himself, this audio continues Howard Zinn's important contribution to a complete and balanced understanding of American history. 

Also, listen to The People Speak, a celebration of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.

©1980, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2003 Howard Zinn (P)199, 2003 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Matt Damon's reading captures the spirit of the text. Like the book, Damon's voice has an edge to it. He expresses the author's outrage regarding the exploitation of certain groups in American history. He also communicates Zinn's admiration for the courage and determination demonstrated by protest leaders." ( AudioFile)

Missing Something

Having read the full text version of Zinn's book in my high school government class 10 years ago, I was really looking forward to revisiting it. Narrator Matt Damon does an outstanding job with the book, and gives it a lot of feeling and flavor. But, I found that this abridged version was simply too abridged. The title for this watered-down version should be "An Overview of A Few Important Trends in Recent US History" not "A People's History of the United States", which promises something broad and ambitious in scope which is simply not delivered.

the second half is better

As much as I like Matt Damon, I really didn't like him reading this book. It sounds like he's falling asleep reading a long list of atrocities. The book gets much better when the author takes over about half way through. The message is pretty dark, that this country is on evil auto-pilot, and that it takes huge movements of people to change its course. My feeling is that we'll only change when someone takes away our TV's and french fries.

Not quite the original

While the content of the book is good, this "abridgement" is really just the last part of the book. While the book version of A People's history..." starts with Columbus (I believe) this audio version covers only the 20th century. I was pretty disappointed, as the audio version is great, but very incomplete. I agree with the other reviewers, Matt Damon is the perfect person to read this book. I think you'd be much better off purchasing the paper copy of this book to get the complete stroy.

Thought provoking perspective

I found this book disturbingly powerful, soul searching and convincing. The thesis is that government portrays the idea of a unified country with a common identity and and National Interest& in order to perpetuate a system where the rich stay rich and benefit greatly and the lower classes of people are kept subservient. The wars since WWII have been to perpetuate the interest of large corporations whose policies place greed above human life, working conditions rights and freedoms. Wars are fought by poorer classes of Americans and the myth of National Interest& is used to motivate them. Wars also serve to distract those being taken advantage of at home from realizing this fact. There are grave injustices against blacks, women, Latinos, gays etc in this country as well as the people in the countries that we attack. The money that could have been used to improve the plight of the underprivileged is instead being used to make arms for the military to fight these wars. The ultimate suffering is by children. Children killed and mutilated by wars, children born in poverty in this country and children of immigrants who are denied services in this country by the lack of social programs. This book makes you want to fight for social justice. I highly recommend this book.

Great Book

This was a Great book with excellent historical details.

Extremely disappointed

I wish I had read these reviews before I bought this book, but friends had highly recommended this book so I bought it. I did read the Audible information through and thought it was quite misleading in the way the description did not make clear that the audiobook was a much abridged 20th Century ONLY edition. What Zinn does cover is very interesting, but a lot of listeners have probably lived through the a large part of the 20th century covered, at least I have.

to the previous review

It's not quite the original because it's the updated Twentieth Century version that was also released as a book. I must add it is quite wonderful and I'm glad Matt Damon could read for it. It's a must have for those interested in history from a new point of view other than war, namely the peoples.

History Biased Toward Bitterness

I originally wanted to listen to this history book because I wanted to hear the historical details of my country that were not taught when I was in school. The book was very interesting at first, but the endless streaming of bitterness and negativity just got the best of me and I just had to stop listening about 3/4 through the book. Perhaps I am naive, but I also got the feeling Mr. Zinn was distorting the history at times by only telling facts he wanted to share to make his negative point, after negative point. I felt most of what he said sounded truthful, from a very radical point of view, but he left me with virtually nothing to proud of as an American. I just don't feel that is fair, or from a more centrist historical viewpoint, accurate.

Not Impressed

Even with this being a "partial" version of the book, I couldn't make it all the way through. I have a great interest in hearing the history that our school textbooks didn't teach us or just flat out lied about, but I felt Zinn really misses the mark. He keeps uttering the same points without really going anywhere. I did appreciate the disclosure of his biases but he is so far left it’s difficult to pluck any objective information from him. I do like Matt Damon as the narrator, unfortunately the author did not supply him with enough substance to keep me interested.

Eye Opening

This book is a wonderful listen and an eye opening challenge to everything you thought you knew. The book is written/read in nice short sections so you are able to follow the author through time as the story of history unfolds. You will get the giggles as things start to enter your lifetime (like Bill Clinton's Presidency). A true gem.