The People Speak

American Voices, Some Famous, Some Little Known

Howard Zinn

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- $4.99

Collected here is a brief history of America told through stories applauding the enduring spirit of dissent.

To celebrate the millionth copy sold of his book, A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn drew on the words of Americans—some famous, some little known—across the range of American history. These words were read by a remarkable cast at an event held at the 92nd Street Y in New York City that included James Earl Jones, Alice Walker, Kurt Vonnegut, Alfre Woodard, Marisa Tomei, Danny Glover, Harris Yulin, Andre Gregory, and others. From that celebration, this book was born.

Here in their own words, and interwoven with commentary by Zinn, are Columbus on the Arawaks; Plough Jogger, a farmer and participant in Shays' Rebellion; Harriet Hanson, a Lowell mill worker; Frederick Douglass; Mark Twain; Mother Jones; Emma Goldman; Helen Keller; Eugene V. Debs; Langston Hughes; Genova Johnson Dollinger on a sit-down strike at General Motors in Flint, Michigan; an interrogation from a 1953 HUAC hearing; Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper and member of the Freedom Democratic Party; Malcolm X; and James Lawrence Harrington, a Gulf War resister, among others.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY MAR 1, 2004

Last winter, Zinn and his publishers hosted a star-studded reading of political tracts to celebrate the sale of the millionth copy of Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States. This slender volume presents the readings from that night, along with brief introductions that give a historical context to each excerpt. Designed to help"theater companies, as well as high schools and colleges,...do their own readings of this highly-charged material," the book covers everything from the arrival of Columbus in the New World to the terror attacks of September 11. Many of the excerpts sound eerily contemporary. Plough Jogger, a participant in Shays's Rebellion, complains,"I have been obliged to pay taxes and nobody will pay me...the great men are going to get all we have." Abby Lincoln asks,"Who will revere the black woman?" and declares that "black womanhood cries for dignity and restitution and salvation." These lesser-known voices mingle with those of Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Cesar Chavez and other well-known dissenters to illustrate Zinn's belief that"the history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest."

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