Essays on Zinn

Migratory History It is said that ethnic Chinese first appeared on the western shores of North America during the period of the Spanish colonial rule in the Philippines, which is about between 1521 to 1815. They had accepted commissions as being businessmen, sailors and fishermen on the Spanish galleons that traversed the Pacific Ocean between the Philippines and Mexico (Brownstone, 2). Several numbers of ethnic Chinese were able to reach California as this state was still the territory of Mexico until 1848. Future expeditions to Vancouver by John Meares, a British fur trader, brought more Chinese into Vancouver around ...

Explain the main changes that occurred after WWII

World War II produced major changes in the way the main economic and military powers related. The United States had seized the opportunity to build its network of international allies, and President Truman made efforts to increase the spread of capitalism and defeat to communism and another socialist movement. The post-war era brought a lot of success to American corporate companies, a factor that increased government resources in the ensuing boom of the 1950’s. Same way, military expenditure increased by double digits between 1947 to 1960, and part of the money was used to offer military support to ...

In this article, I would like to talk about the historian Howard Zinn, without going into the details of his biography. Because you can easy found this information on the Internet. I would consider his views on history in general, why and under what circumstances its occurred. Howard found himself in history and political science since his youth. A first rally Zinn visited when he was a seventeen-year-old young man, the friends who were breathing unevenly to the communist ideology invited him. After the meeting, young Howard changed his mind about the rule government and human rights in general. ...

Howard Zinn was a successful historian of the twentieth century. He was unusual in that he shifted the historical paradigm away from the norm – instead of mainly talking about white males, who had been the focus of history up to that point due to the power structure of the times, he focused instead on the stories less told; the roads less travelled. The book You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train tracks his own journey through history by means of reflecting on how he himself sees history; not necessarily his own history, but history as a whole.

What are Zinn’s Ideas About how History Should be Portrayed?

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Industrialization after the Civil War Final Paper

Strayer University This paper was prepared for HIS 105 Contemporary U.S. History

Taught by: Dr. James Allen

Introduction This paper will discuss some aspects, affected groups and effects of the industrialization of the US after its civil war. Particular attention would be on the change from a primarily agrarian economy to an industrialized one in what was called the Gilded Age or the Second Industrial Revolution.

Growth of Transportation and Manufacturing

After the Reconstruction revived the economy and society of the South to bearable levels, the nation shifted its energies to expanding the industrial base of the North to the rest of the country. The railroad industry paved the ...

In A People's History of the United States, Zinn devotes chapter 13 to socialist movements during the early 1900's. Is this justified or is he overstating the impact of the socialist movement? Socialist movements gained tract in the turn of the century, and many workers were keen getting a fair share of their efforts from the employers. Also, people demanded more from the government, pushing for the protection of the old, sick and poor through programs that would reach out to the people. The formation of the National Civic Federation by Ralph Easley spelled doom and hard times for ...

In its support of the slavery system, the government of the United States utilized the law. In other words, the federal government either passed legislations to thwart any threats made against the institution of slavery or persecuted individuals for failing to adhere to the same. A perfect illustration of the given claims revolves around the actions of political leaders and the States’ harsh responses to calls for liberation during the Antebellum Era. In Howard Zinn’s words, the government allowed whites to use “the laws, courts, [and] armed forces” to restrict persons of African descent to the lowest class ...

Thesis and Outline: Industrialization after the Civil War

Thesis Statement An analysis of the period that followed the American Civil War reveals changes in the economic, political, and social spheres as the country shifted from an agrarian society to an industrial one.

Essay Outline

Factories emerged as the people shifted to an industrialized society. Before the American Civil War, industrialization was most prominent in the Northern States while the Southern economic backbone encompassed plantations. With the end of the war, the country’s economy changed as the Northerners’ influence spread beyond their States: “canal companies and later railway companies provided transport infrastructure” to aid the spread of businesses (More, ...

The US government created a Committee on Public Information (CPI) that was to focus on managing the nation's propaganda efforts, staging pageants, turning out advertisements, press releases, billboards and creating films. The committee was responsible for providing an American ideology of World War I as it intended to educate the American public and gain support for the war (Creel, 1920). The United States recognized the strength that public opinion carries and therefore the government wanted to use this force. One of the ways that the US government tried to influence public opinion from the excerpt was through creating an ...

1. Are the acts of Columbus and the Spanish explorers considered genocide? 2. What, does zinn argue, is the sacrifice of human progress? According to Zinn, for human progress human sacrifice needs to be made. Zinn argues that throughout history there have been several examples of atrocities that have helped in human progress. The discovery of America by Columbus also led to atrocities. Several Indians were killed by Columbus and other explorers and many were taken back as slaves. Zinn claims that bloodshed and deceit have been a necessary part of human progress and have helped in overcoming hindrances ...

History is the study of past events especially involving human affairs. It also includes the study of following past incidents in the history of humankind connected to someone or something. Studying history assists humanity in understanding how the society has transformed in time. It also helps students relate various modern trends in the society and compares them to the progression from the early times (Bartolome 4). History is also an element of filtering the learned from the unlearned. Historians believe that by use of historical knowledge of facts and figures one can be able to determine the level of ...

Central to American independence was the Revolutionary War of between 1775 and 1783, which saw the English Empire relinquish her control of the Thirteen Colonies in North America. Freedom came with the eradication of all monarchical rules and the formation of the United States of America under a Constitution to protect democracy. In that sense, Britain lost her territories because of the conflicts that emerged between the Empire and the colonists. Evidently, from the fact that the mother country sought to exert direct control over the colonies from its distant location to the notions of liberty that permeated the ...

Introduction

Foremost, in the years leading to the American Revolutionary War, patriotic societies in the thirteen colonies no longer relied on the Mother Country; in fact, they sought self-governance because the period allowed the same. After the Seven Years’ War and the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the English Monarch emerged victoriously and removed the threats posed by the Spanish and French forces. Hence, “ambitious colonial leaders were no longer threatened” and could claim more control (Zinn, 2005, p.59). At the same time, the “colonists contributed soldiers and economic resources” to aid in the war effort and as a ...

The Tea Act Of 1773

Slide 2 The Seven Year’s War of between 1754 and 1763 and the signing of the Treaty of Paris to end the skirmishes formed the foundations on which tensions emerged between the Thirteen Colonies and the mother country (Zinn, 2005, p.59). Two factors facilitated the emergence of independence sentiments in the colonies as the colonies no longer needed the protection of the powerful Britons: The war brought perceptions of equality between the colonists and the English populace residing in the mother country (Foner, 2011, p.189). Britain was at a disadvantage as it remained with an “enormous debt and ...

Montejano in his article, “Anglos and Mexicans in the first century,” describes the repercussions of America’s deteriorating space in the entrepreneurial global-system for the newly accomplished public accommodation between Chicano intermediate class representatives and the Anglo trade in the Southwest (Montejano 2). Montejano further explores the issue of ethnic relations in the United States and views it as the primary cause of economic stagnation in the nation (4).He argues that the contemporary racial condition is characterized by political integration which he describes as the giving way of operational nationality to the Mexican American (5). In addition, the ...

This paper focuses on the theme of aggression/conflict simply because the subject has been central to most if not all of the United States’ economic, political, and social changes, such as the American Revolutionary War. In the years leading to the skirmishes, the English Monarch boasted of thirteen colonies in North America, but that was not the case by the closing of the eighteenth century. To that end, the theme of aggression/conflict comes into play as the blueprint to know more about the birth of the United States of America as it defined the relationship between colonists and the ...

Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States from 1492 to the Present is universally known as one of the most influential, if not the best or most historically sound social history of the United States. Zinn is one of the most famous examples of a kind of historian that was born of a particular moment in American history. Although it was originally published in 1980 it symbolizes the fervor and excitement of the 1960s of the counterculture, the Civil Rights and antiwar movements. Zinn’s book is deeply steeped in these movements and their social ...

The prominence of the US as a world’s superpower has been shaped by a series of historical events. Most of these historical events greatly influenced various policies that informed how the country engages with the international community and how to handle national issues that confronted the American citizens. Some of the events that shape the US foreign and local policies include;

The great Depression (1929-1939)

The Great Depression was the world’s longest economic downturn in the world.Zinn reiterates that the Great Depression started in the United States in October 1929 when the stock market crashed. The condition sent panic among investors ...

The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee or the SNCC, as the name suggests, revolved around peaceful forms of resistance to the white supremacy ideologies that not only warranted the enslavement of blacks in the antebellum period but also cemented the grounds of segregation. In other words, because of the racial divisions that existed between persons of African descent and their white counterparts, American societies functioned around a social hierarchy that made whites the predominantly superior race at the expense of blacks. Now, to end the racial injustices in the Southern States, the first method that the SNCC employed encompassed the “ ...

After the American Civil War of between 1861 and 1865, and the ensuing Reconstruction Era that apparently failed, the United States witnessed the beginning of new social orders based on old ideologies. Persons of African descent remained inferior to their white counterparts and were it not for the federal government’s abolition of the slavery system black enslavement would have most likely returned to its former glory as the economic backbone of the South. To that end, while the understanding of 1877 as a year revolves around the end of reconstruction efforts as Union troops left the South, it ...

Modern America is in a situation of global transformation in all spheres of life. This is most clearly manifested in the radical change in traditional family values ​​and marriage, which leads to the erosion of semantic values ​​of the American mentality, the historical model of social change in the institution of family and marriage. “There is evidence, however, that the structure of social relationships in the United States has shifted in recent decades” (McPherson et al., 354). This paper discusses how television broadcasts family values ​​and patterns in American society during a few decades. In the 1950ies American family ...

After the Second World War of between 1939 and 1945, the globe witnessed the rise of yet another conflict in the form of the Cold War. Apparently, with no need for an alliance against a common foe, the Soviet Union, and the United States turned against each other on the grounds of different ideologies of governance. While Americans were for the democracy based capitalism, the Soviets stood for communism that went against the United States’ perceptions of freedom. To that end, the Cold War did not amount to actual combat between the two powers; although allied countries took to ...

After World War II, the contradictory ideologies between the Soviets and the Americans finally materialized, as the two countries became superpowers albeit in different spheres. On one hand, the United States established its dominance in the East; on the other, the Soviet Union held the West. Consequently, the two nations created the Eastern and Western Bloc on which the governance of their respective territories took place, and as they formed new alliances. At the root of the disparities was the question of how best to exercise their new powers. The United States of America supported imperialism while the Soviet ...

Introduction

As very well stated by Jeff Wilson (2014) in his book Mindful America, “How Buddhism moves into new cultures and becomes domesticated: in each case, members of the new culture take from Buddhism what they believe will relieve their culture-specific distresses and concerns, in the process spawning new Buddhism (sometimes, crypto-Buddhism) that better fit their needs” (Wilson, 2014, p. 3). Mindfulness in its true form is practicing and taming the mind to learn to live in the present without thinking about past or present while observing from a distance our own self and our thoughts which continue to flow ...

After the American Revolutionary War of between 1775and 1783, it took a little more than a quarter of a century before Britain faced its previous colonists of North America in yet another battle, the War of 1812. Still, it was not until 1823 that the United States issued a decree to govern its involvement with Britain and the rest of Europe in the form of the Monroe Doctrine. Thus said, the central problem in both instances entailed the actions of one or more European powers and for that reason, it is safe to claim that the War of 1812 ...

Before the American Civil War of between 1861 and 1865, black slavery in the United States thrived on the pillars of white supremacy. Otherwise dubbed the antebellum period, the years ranging from 1820 to 1860 witnessed a gradual yet steady increase in the country’s reliance on slave labor. As per the ideologies of white supremacy, the dominance of white people warranted the inferiority of colored individuals and as a result, everyone belonging to the former group could hold those of the latter faction in bondage. Accordingly, the cultural norms of the country during the given era encompassed the ...

“I don’t believe it is possible to be neutral. The world is already moving in a certain direction and to be neutral, to be passive in the situation like that - is to collaborate with whatever is going on. And I, as a teacher, do not want to be a collaborator with whatever is happening in the world. I want myself, as a teacher, and I want you as students, to intercede with whatever is happening in the world” – these words belong to the famous historian, writer, political scientist and simply one of the most honorable persons of ...

American History: Reviewing Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States

A People’s History of the United States is an endeavour to settle the unsteadiness in the existing body of work on the history of the United States—to highlight the historical facts that have been often neglected. The focus topics are poverty and gender and racial disparity in the United States history, and how the government’s workings have affected these issues. By surveying a extensive list of secondary material regarding the iconic moments that shaped the history of the country—ranging from Columbus’ arrival at the shores of the country to the United States under the Clinton government— ...

This paper presents a summary of the first chapter of Dr. Howard Zinn’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A People’s History of the United States. The Chapter is titled Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress. It deals with the subject of slavery and subjugation of the indigenous peoples in various parts of the world as events that have formed our understanding of the human civilization as it is today. The objective of the chapter is to question if events such as genocides are essential for the progress of humans. It also questions if history’s approach of heralding certain people ...