After reading Howard Zinn\u2019s first chapter of A People\u2019s History of the United States, I realized this book would be interesting because it will tell the story of a familiar historical event from an unfamiliar perspective. The perspective Zinn uses is the perspective of \u201cthe people\u201d, not of \u201cthe heroes\u201d. I am pretty sure everyone learned about how Christopher Columbus was a hero and sailed across the sea and found this New World, North America, in the middle of his voyage. \u00a0Well Zinn uses the perspective of the Arawak to tell the story, by doing this he introduces new information to the readers that was not taught in school. New information like, Columbus being greedy, ruthless, and navigationally incompetent which leads us to the simple truth, there was nothing noble or heroic about Columbus\u2019s expeditions to the New World. The natives welcomed the foreigners even though they were invading their land, and the invaders like Christopher Columbus, Francisco Pizarro, and Hernando Cortes still responded with violence and cruelty. For some reason the history textbooks left that part out, which led many people to believe these men were heroes for finding all this new land and getting rid of the natives.<\/p>\n
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Howard Zinn makes it clear that his book is not just another history book filled with the same typical boring history lessons. Instead it is a book responding and challenging the many history lessons that have been from the perspective of conquerors, colonizers, and etc. By writing this book Zinn is telling a version of history that is typically not taught in schools, this version holds people like Christopher Columbus accountable for their crimes which is great. Columbus and other known explorers seemed to not express any guilt about torturing and murdering innocent people that were in their way of conquering new land and new wealth. Zinn uses comparisons between the people of today and the conquerors from history, that really showed how Americans have not really changed. Just like in history we are divided between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the powerless, we definitely have changed since 1492, but not as much as the history textbooks make it seem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After reading Howard Zinn\u2019s first chapter of A People\u2019s History of the United States, I realized this book would be interesting because it will tell…<\/p>\n