A Young People's History of the United States

The Cold War refers to the ideological (and occasionally military conflict) between the capitalist US and the communist Soviet Union (Russia) following those nations’ alliance during World War II. The military spheres of the Cold War are sometimes called “hot war” moments or “proxy wars” because though major capitalist and communist nations were involved in violent confrontation, the wars occurred in contested regions rather than in the large ruling nations themselves. For example, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were proxy wars of the Cold War.

During the Cold War, the American political system coalesced around anti-communism. This goal brought together Democrats and Republicans, the only two major political parties. Promoting capitalism and American patriotism as a global force of good and Soviet communism as both inherently evil and directly threatening to American security, the ruling class in the US criminalized political dissent and arrested thousands of people despite having little to no evidence of espionage or political subterfuge.

Scholars have defined several distinct types of colonialism, but as a general concept the term describes the process by which one ruling power exerts political control over people of a different nation or culture and seizes land from it. Part of this process entails occupying the land by setting up colonies in which settlers work and live. In some cases, settlers wish to entirely replace the Indigenous population in the lands they move into, and conquering governments and settlers launch efforts to displace or eradicate Indigenous groups. In other cases, the ruling country exploits the Indigenous population as laborers, typically through slavery. Europeans colonized the Americas, initially enslaving Indigenous people in some of the most brutal systems in world history. Colonialism within the expanding US once it became a nation relied more on warfare and questionable diplomacy to relocate and consolidate Indigenous people into segregated groups.

Colonialism is like imperialism, a process through rich ruling nations build empires. Empires typically include colonies throughout the world.

The Confederate States of America, or the Confederacy for short, was the alliance of Southern states that seceded from the Union. States formed a self-proclaimed republic and elected a president (Jefferson David); however, that republic was unrecognized by both the Union and foreign countries. The states that made up the Confederacy were South Carolina (the first state to secede after Lincoln’s election), Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. These “slave states” wanted to maintain slavery but feared that Lincoln would end it if they recognized his political authority. Though initially successful on the battlefield, the Confederacy ultimately surrendered to the Union in 1865, and each state reentered the Union after the war. The Confederate flag has remained a symbol in US culture, representing certain visions of individual freedom if not the Confederacy and its values directly.

Zinn uses this term to describe the powerful and influential entities in American economics, politics, culture, and society once the country existed in its more-or-less modern form (that is, once industrial capitalism was firmly established by the end of the 19th century). At one point, he describes the Establishment as “the big powers like business, government, the schools, and the medical industry” (313). All these institutions perpetuated celebratory myths of American history and society while also directly harming people. Big businesses allowed the worst working conditions and lowest wages they could without facing legal ramifications or worker rebellion. The government aided the rich and ignored the difficulties of the poor; it broke treaties, failed to enforce equity laws, and engaged in many corrupt activities at home and abroad. Public schools taught sanitized versions of history that erased or demonized people of color—until activists forced changes in curriculum. Parts of the Establishment firmly resisted desegregation in both the North and the South after the Supreme Court mandated it. For example, the medical industry treated people inequitably and was responsible for abuses against women and people of color. In Zinn’s estimation, the Establishment was and is the friend of the rich and the enemy of the poor.

In his glossary of terms, Zinn describes feminism as “the belief that women are equal to men and deserve equal rights” (428). Alternatively, the term represents a broader agenda: that all people of all genders (and races, classes, etc.) are equal and deserve equal rights and equity initiatives that force equal access to the protection of the law and ample resources for a safe and healthy life. Various feminist movements have emerged throughout US history, coalescing around particular women’s issues like the right to vote and the right for women to exercise autonomy over their lives and bodies. Feminism is at odds with some historical goals of the US given that its government was crafted entirely by white men who were nearly all wealthy and already in political and social circles of influence.

Historiography is the published record of works of history. It develops as historians uncover additional sources or revisit previous ideas to amend them. Throughout his text, Zinn recounts various major interpretations that historians have articulated in professional publications peer reviewed by others in the academic discipline. While Zinn doesn’t explicitly use the term “historiography,” he delivers lessons in leading historiography throughout the book.

Particularly in the first half of the book, the term “Indian” appears often to describe the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Another popular term for this broad and diverse demographic is “Native Americans.” While “Native Americans” has developed the reputation for political correctness in American society, the term “Indian,” though derived from a misidentification of geography, is widely used in both scholarship and Native communities. The term has been reclaimed by many Native people as empowering, although terminology relating to Native identity depends on many factors, including specific context and personal preference.

The term “labor movement” describes decades of organizing and activism among laborers to better their circumstances. Zinn often discusses urban factory workers, who constituted a large percentage of workers that mobilized in various periods of American history to carry out strikes or otherwise negotiate better wages, working conditions, and work-life balance. Though closely tied to official labor unions that represented and organized workers of a certain trade, the labor movement is a broader term that recognizes class struggle throughout American history. Although Zinn largely champions workers, he notes that the labor movement often failed because of capitalism’s stronghold on American society and politics. He also notes shortcoming within the movement itself. In key moments, workers failed to overcome lines of division, particularly race, gender, and farm work versus urban industrial work. Without coalescing as a united group, the movement never upended capitalism to the extent that it intended, and its victories were often small and hard-fought.

Manifest Destiny was a term introduced by journalist John O’Sullivan in 1945, although the concept hearkened back to long-held notions of American superiority and privilege. The term describes a God-given right for Americans to conquer and occupy the entire continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Imagining that God endorsed US expansion provided a justification for the brutality of the ensuing process. This term, which closely relates to “colonialism” (see above), typically describes expansionist ideology in the mid- to late-19th century, when many Euro-Americans took overland trails to “settle” in the trans-Mississippi West, and companies built railroads, mines, and other infrastructure to integrate the West into the American economy.

A primary source is a surviving piece of history. While primary sources can be artifacts, commonly used primary sources in classrooms and in A Young People’s History of the United States are typically first-hand accounts created in the period they describe. They might include newspaper articles, illustrations, photographs, diary entries, speeches, or any other recorded account. Zinn reproduces excerpts from textual primary sources to bring the voices of historical actors into the book’s narrative. In addition, he incorporates supplemental historical images into the text as visual aids.

Slavery has taken several forms throughout human history, but the system of slavery established in the US and discussed in the book is a form of forced labor that mainly targeted Africans and people of African descent until the mid-19th century. It supported a large system of plantation agriculture, although enslaved people were also forced to work in factories, homes, etc. Unlike slavery in other parts of the world, American slavery reproduced itself because children born to enslaved mothers were automatically held in bondage. Enslaved people were not, therefore, necessarily captives or obtained through auction except in the early generations of enslaved people on the American continent. The US government abolished slavery during the American Civil War.