Critique of Voices of a People’s History of the United States

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March 26, 2019
Critique of Voices of a People’s History of the United States
The birth and rise to power of almighty United States of America was never a smooth one. Just like any other country, US has undergone through wars, insurrections, and revolutions, that molded it to its current state that we now know of. Included in our history are prominent individuals, together with their speeches, life history, and performances among others that have been repeatedly inscribed in our history books. However, as we all know, history is not only built upon by a group of people nor defined by their monumental actions. Rather, momentous changes in our history are due to the collective actions of everyone involved, regardless of their background and predispositions in life. In line with this, Zinn and Arnove’s book entitled Voices of a People’s History of the United States have focused on other means of reinterpreting history, which would have been usually left out from our own history books. Nevertheless, knowing that individuals have their own predispositions, this paper would focus on understanding how the authors’ perspective and purpose could have influenced the rhetorical choices that they made in writing it. This includes any possible inclination in their ideologies and manner of speaking. All in all, I believe that by looking more intently on the different elements of their work, a greater insight into the ideas that govern their work could be gleaned.
Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove
Both of the authors of the book mentioned above were important personalities in history of the country. On the one hand, Howard Zinn is a well-known American historian and social activist, who have authored a number of books about social activism and the injustices that perpetrates the nation. Zinn is also not aloof from the difficulties faced by those people that gives their lives for the State as he himself has worked on the army in fighting during both the Vietnam and Iraq war CITATION Enc19 \l 1033 (Encyclopædia Britannica). On the other hand, Anthony Arnove is a political activist as well as a freelance journalist. Just like Zinn, Arnove fought in the Army during the Iraw and Gulf wars CITATION Encnd \l 1033 (Encyclopedia.com). Nonetheless, he has been a strong advocate for humanitarian as well as social issues just like Zinn.
‘Voices’
Although the text of the book in focus was mostly focused on the testimonies of the respondents that the authors have interviewed, a closer look on how these testimonies were synthesized could give a deeper reflection on the role of their personal backgrounds.
In the first section of their book, the authors have discussed the differences upon how Christopher Columbus was portrayed in our history books as compared to his actions that were recorded in the transcripts and diaries left out by him and his men. On the one hand, due to the workings of our way of writing history, Columbus was “universally portrayed as a heroic figure, a brave adventurer, a skilled seaman who crossed the ocean not knowing what he would find, and stumbled on an unknown continent” CITATION Zin04 \p 29 \l 1033 (Zinn and A...