A People's History of the Civil War

A People's History of the Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom
594 pages
© 2005 David Williams

No war has left such an impression on the American character as its civil war. That conflict (1861-1865) claimed more American lives than either World War 2 or Vietnam, and remains the only great war to have taken place on American soil. (The war of independence took place here, but didn't occupy or ravage the landscape to any comparable degree.) The memory of it lives on, especially in the south where people fly Confederate flags from their yards and speak still of states' rights and the Cause. Despite its human and material costs, when the war is spoken of it is usually romanticized, depicted a battle between good and evil -- though whether the good was the Union fighting to destroy slavery or the South fighting to defend its rights varies on who is involved in the discussion. Enter A People's History of the Civil War,  a merciless and fascinating treatment that exposes the weaknesses of traditional narratives and butchers illusions. It is both dynamite and bitter medicine -- powerful, necessary, and sometimes painful.

No serious historian would maintain that the Union invaded the South to free the slaves, or that the South severed ties with the Union purely in the defense of principle: anyone with an ounce of integrity would acknowledge contributing economic and material influences. At the very least one might say that the war was simply the violent expression of an conflict between two economic systems, that of the industrial and commercial north versus the traditional, agrarian south.  Williams' account is more direct: the war was about money and power, just the same as any war. Even the abolitionists were motived in part by greed: northern businessmen didn't want their expansion into the west having to compete with the free labor of southern powers.  Although Brooks' work is organized more thematically than chronologically (containing distinct sections on the role of women, labor,  the lives of soldiers, reaction to conscription, the governments' treatment of women etc) he jumps in feet first by critically examining the legitimacy of secession. Contrary to popular belief -- the Confederate government is more loved now than it was when it actually existed -- secession was not a popular mandate. Brooks reveals how election on the question of secession were rigged, stolen, or done away with outright by the planters who saw the election of Lincoln as a threat to their way of life.  Not only was the cutting of ties unpopular: so was the war that followed.  Economic powers in the north were patently unwillingly to allow the south's resources to simply walk away from the union. Following Lincoln's call to arms, support for the two governments' cause rallied briefly, but soon fell away, leading to conscription acts in both parts of the country and fostering popular resentment against the government.  Why did the South lose? The conventional answer of our usual narrative is that the South's lack of material resources doomed her against the industrious north...but Brooks notes on several occasions that the South never lost a battle for want of arms or ammunition: time and again, its weakness was the faltering support of the people for an uninspiring government and a cause not their own: Davis and Lee noted with urgent concern the rising deseration rates in their ranks as early as 1862.

The American Civil War was in short a rich man's war and a poor man's fight: not only was it created by the economic rivalry of competeing business interests, but these same men declined to take part in the fight once it was begun. When the initial emotional spasm of patriotism subsided and the volunteers fell away, both sides instituted conscription acts...but the wealthy were functionally exempt, either for practical reasons (because they could purchase substitutes) or by law (planters with more than twenty slaves were exempt from the draft).  At least the northern elites contributed to the war effort through industrial production: in the south, planters took advantage of increased wartime prices for cotton and shifted emphasis to producing it instead of food, leading to mass and chronic starvation that endured throughout the war.  The producers of war materials also looted soldiers and the government for all they were worth in selling supplies; a practice evidently a staple of American warmaking, for this was a principle complaint of Major General Smedley Butler's War is a Racket, dated 1935 and drawing on suppliers' behavior in the Great War.  The soldiers' experience was generally one of misery:  Brooks documents the inferior food, ghastly medical practices, harsh disicpline (promoted by the contempt of the wealthy officer class for the proles under their command), and the obscene misuse of soldiers using traditional tactics against modern weapons.  A massed body of men in bright uniform makes a marvelous target for the gunners, a fact that Europe learned in 1914. Little wonder that the soldiers and their families at home protested so mightily; little wonder that they deserted. The loyalty they had, Brooks wrote, was to their comrades: though "The Cause" rung hollow after the first year of conflict, few soldiers were willing to simply abandon their friends and comrades to the dangers of war.  They fought on not for the country, but for each other.

Alas, such solidarity is not to be found outside the soldiers' ranks. The war was a truly a civil war, not because it pit Americans from the north and south against one another but because it pit the common people against one another. They're horrifyingly fickle, "the people", first lyching one another for not supporting the war, then for supporting it;  while the tale has a reliable villain in southern planters, there are precious few heroes to be found here in this text where the abolitionists are viciously anti-labor;  the rich abuse the poor, men abuse the women, governments mistreat the Indians, and everybody hates the blacks.   The usual strength of the People's History series is that its infuriating and saddening accounts of exploitation are redeemed by inspiring feats when the people rally together and overcome their oppressors. That never happens here: the people are continually set against one another, and as the bodycount rises one looks for a small sliver of hope in the fact that at least the slaves were freed and the south was forced to modernize. No such luck:  freedmen were trapped in slavery by another name, tenancy-farming, or migrated northward to be abused in the factories by men who were just as fearful and prejudiced as planters of the south.  This is no account for the faint of heart: it will force those who believe in popular sovereignty to face hard questions.  How can a just and peaceful government be possible when people are so easy to set against one another? Such is the question posed to us by the legacy of the Civil War.

A People's History of the Civil War is a mighty contribution to American Civil War literature. It asks questions no other account would, explores facets of the conflict that would otherwise have gone hidden: it ignores military campaigns and politics to look at the lives of the people who were forced to fight and endure through the war. I read about the war obsessively during my high school years, and still time and again Brooks' work left me reeling.   As powerful as it is, it has its weaknesses -- the editing is rough around the edges, and as much as the pages are saturated with primary sources protesting the war or bewailing the rich,  it's easy to cherry pick --  but what it reveals is worth considering for anyone with an interest in the war.

You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
© 1995, 2002 Howard Zinn
224 pages

Howard Zinn not only taught history: he helped make it. The product of a working-class family in New York, Zinn left the shipyard and union he helped create to fly bombers over Germany during World War 2, returning to take advantage of the G.I. Bill and becoming a professor of history. His approach  rejected static observation of events and tributes to Great Leaders in favor of lively accounts favoring the underdogs and victims of history. He intended to inspire those he taught, encouraging them to look to themselves to create the changes they wished to see in the world.  Practicing what he preached, Zinn took up protest banners, broke through segregation barriers, faced arrest and and imprisonment, and even gambled his life a time or two.

During a question-and-answer period following a 1992 lecture, Zinn was asked to account for the strength of his convictions and the stubbornness of his hope. He grew up in slums, saw his fellow workers beaten by policemen when they protested for their rights: his first teaching job was in the south, where he saw the brutality of segregation firsthand, in which millions of people were treated like pariahs and forced to accept substandard homes, wages, public facilities, and treatment at the hands of the law -- just because of the color of their skin. He entered his adult years as the costly Vietnam War waged, which killed millions and destroyed the trust between the government and its people.

Despite this, Zinn maintained his belief in the tenacity of the human spirit -- for in all these desperate moments, Zinn saw acts of individual courage in which people stood up for themselves and human dignity, despite the odds and power arrayed against them. Some of these moments are justly famous -- the Civil Rights marchers in Selma come to mind --  but Zinn's life saw many such heroes. He witnessed a group of young women at Spelmen college force the public libraries to integrate all by themselves, and during Vietnam he helped a group of rogue nuns hide a radical Catholic priest named Dan Berrigan, a man wanted by the FBI for his acts of civil disobedience.  Every dark hour of history saw a glimmer of light in it, as people unfailingly decided they weren't going to take this abuse lying down. Strengthened by the courage of their convictions, they refused to accept the status quo -- and they changed history for the better.

Zinn believes in using history to create consciousness about injustice, for it cannot be fought in ignorance. His  autobiography, interlaced with the story of America in the 20th century,  is effective in this: his sections on conditions for the working class and for blacks are particularly harrowing to read.  Civil Rights and the Vietnam War dominate the book, though there is a single chapter on "growing up class conscious".  The book's most prevalent theme is the importance of active dissent -- in both keeping democracy healthy and in fighting injustice.  I imagine most people who read this are already familiar with Zinn's work (I watched the documentary movie based on this book after reading one or two of his books,)  but unless you've read The Zinn Reader there should be a few surprises in store. I'd definitely recommend it to those who want a look inside the Civil Rights movement (Zinn made the history of my hometown come alive), or those interested in the justice or frailties of war.  Even those who have read The Zinn Reader would benefit from a refresher, though: I read this because I was feeling discouraged, and the hours I spent with it have left me feeling renewed.

Related:

• The Zinn Reader, a collection of Zinn's articles and essays throughout the years on a variety of subjects.  Despite growing up in Selma, Alabama, the Civil Rights struggles that took place here never meant anything to me until I read his on-the-ground history of events. Last summer I started walking around town on foot, visiting places like Brown Chapel and the bridge.
• A Power No Governments Can Suppress, also by Zinn and about the role of civil disobedience and protest in maintaining democracy. 

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
© 2007 Howard Zinn
293 pages



This year I have become convincted that democracy is not something that happens at the ballot-box but on the streets. It consists in mass movements forcing the institutions that oppose them to reform. Howard Zinn's pet subject, social movements, is thus of great interest to me. His book title and cover invoke a spirit of conviction, of fighting for justice -- and its contents do not disappoint.

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is a collection of essays, most written on a simple theme but some working the theme into biographical coverage of people and organizations. Zinn introduces the book with an essay on the use of history to inform, inspire, and provoke people to action. The essays that follow constitute such a history, although not one as general or as tightly woven as A People's History of the United States. The essays can be read by themselves, and topics vary.  Although most of the essays are about people of conviction of who have stood up against the powers that be (Freedom Riders, Henry David Thoreau, Eugene Debs, soldiers in revolt) many see Zinn attempt to provoke readers more directly by writing on topics such as class, immigration, nationalism, pacifism,  government, and war. Although to witness so much injustice throughout history is almost discouraging, the ending essay encourages optimism: even when the odds are against us, human history has proven to be unpredictable. Struggling for a better society is always a gamble, but if we do not participate, there is no chance that matters will improve. 

As usual, Zinn communicates his own passion clearly. Because the essential idea is one so positive that no one could be against it -- people struggling against injustice -- I suspect those who object to Zinn do so owing to his approach. While some might prefer to defend various nations and concepts with some concessions that they do harm , Zinn sees national boundaries, war, and the like as fundamentally malevolent. I enjoyed visiting the stories of those who have tried to "fight the good fight", and can imagine re-reading this book in the future. I reccommend it.

The Zinn Reader

The Zinn Reader
© 1997 Howard Zinn
668 pages


When I pulled this book from the shelf, I did so with the intention of checking it out and reading it over the Thanksgiving holiday. I did not anticipate the book monopolizing my interest from the moment I peeked inside on my way downstairs to the circulation desk to check it out until the minute I finished it. That a book of nearly seven hundred pages, often about politics, never lost my interest is impressive indeed.

Last week I watched a biographical documentary about the life of author Howard Zinn, a historian whom I read in the early spring. His People’s History of America and People’s History of American Empire were historical narratives with political messages, wholly interesting to me.  The man who emerged from the documentary and from this book is fascinating: he grew up poor, in the slums of New York, back when the United States had its own labor and socialist movements. He was part of a B-17 crew during the Second World War, and afterwards became a historian and political activist, a combination of roles he sees only as natural. By chance he was sent to the South just as the Civil Rights movement began in earnest, and has written commentary on seemingly every major social and political event of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. This book contains a large sampling of articles, essays, newspaper columns, book introductions, and other literature he produced during the period, and it is a staggeringly communicative book.  Zinn is easily the most captivating political author I’ve ever read, communicating not just history, but the emotional effect of history. Zinn’s indignation, sadness, and anger are obvious, but never overwhelming.

The Zinn Reader is one man’s commentary on his and the United States’ history and development. Zinn is a character in a larger story, responding to the historical events that unfold around him. Zinn is very much involved with history: for him, the idea that the historian is and must be  neutral is wrong, fallacious even.  Historians, and scholars in general, have the right and duty as human beings to respond to what is happening in their world -- to champion the causes they see as righteous and to attack with fervency what injustice and lies they can. He doesn’t write simply on the major events of his life -- World War 2, the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam -- but on the minor parts as well (Boston University’s “battleground” role during the rise of the student left) - -and on the whole scope of American history, from Columbus to the Gilded Age and beyond.

The highest praise I can give to any book is that it added depth to my life in making me think: Zinn addresses questions of mine in regards to civil disobedience (when is it “right”, namely), and makes me examine old ideas and new ones alike. The book swept me away, and I imagine it will be holding sway over my mind for a good long while, in the manner of Neil Postman. I don’t know if I’ll read anything more memorable this year -- I doubt I could. I recommend this to you utterly.

A People's History of the United States

A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present
© 2003 Howard Zinn
729 pages

I attracted a fair number of dirty looks and endured numerous assaults on my non-existent patriotism for reading this book, making it especially fun to read in public. Zinn begins the book with the story of Columbus discovering the United States, and from a more cynical viewpoint than one is apt to hear anyone else. After writing on the horrors that Columbus and his compatriots visited upon natives, Zinn talks to the reader directly on historical narratives. He accepts the idea that any historical account is loaded with bias: his aim is to tell the story of the United States from the perspective of the "losers" of history: the natives, the poor, women, blacks, homosexuals, immigrants, labor, Cuban rebels, South American revolutionaries, and more. The book is written "to be skeptical of governments and their attempts, through politics and culture, to ensnare ordinary people in a giant web of nationhood pretending to a common interest".

He then takes the reader through the downtrodden's history of the United States, eviscerating even the sacred cow of the American Revolution. I worked through it a little by little, day by date, taking breaks to read from other books to give myself a break from the sad story that American history apparently is. I can't really criticize Zinn's approach: history is a narrative. People who take it seriously, like myself, can try as best we can to be objective, but the facts we choose to use and the manner in which we connect them is still subject to bias. This book is not the story of inevitable progress, of people working together to create civilization out of wilderness and fight evil -- it is a story often repeated, one of the powerful subduing the weak -- but one also of the weak standing up for themselves and forcing changes. At book's end, Zinn writes that he wants to end narratives that depend on the Great Men of history stepping in to guide the people -- Abraham Lincoln through the Civil war, FDR through the Depression, Carter through the post-Watergate era. Few if any of America's political leaders escape Zinn's criticism.

The book was interesting for me, because much of the great America narrative had already fallen apart for me before reading in. During my freshmen year of college, my western civilization professor would often comment on how the authors of our textbook treated various subjects. "I think they do a fair job on this subject," he might say, or "They passed this over". During my first semester with him, I was very uncomfortable: what was he doing criticizing the authors of the textbook? The idea impressed upon me in the three semesters I took classes with him -- accidentally, I might add -- was that authors bear responsibility for what they write, that indeed history is written by people. Textbooks are no more objective than popular history books, and getting used to that took some doing. As I read more and grew in both knowledge and age, I realized there were problems with the History of the United States as I knew it. My skepticism began with the Mexican and American Civil War, but soon touched almost every aspect of US history except for World War 2. When I began looking at the Revolutionary War differently, I realized something in me had changed. That certainly has something to do with my coming a student of philosophy and thinking about the way and why people believe what they do.

This book will appeal to some and appall others, and so all I can say this is (tongue-in-cheekly): he who hath an ear, let him hear.

A People's History of American Empire

A People's History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaption
© 2008 Howard Zinn
273 pages

Earlier in the week, I read A People's History of American Empire, composed by Howard Zinn, Mike Konopacki, and Paul Buhle. The book is a graphic novel, and framed through a lecture given by Howard Zinn -- featuring Zinn as a character, introducing his lecture on American imperialism in the introduction before beginning it in chapter one. The story of American imperialism is expanded in twelve chapters, beginning with the end of the "Indian Wars" and ending with the invasion of Iraq. Most of the text is Zinn speaking, with the pictures providing illustrations. There are numerous "stories" set in the text, in which Zinn-as-narrator almost disappears. Given the nature of the book -- or the graphic novel, as it were -- its narrative reads very well.

This is very much a book about individuals who have resisted American and corporate imperialism as well as government and corporate indifference to the misery they cause. There are two general themes: one, the developing nature of imperialism, and two, the reactions of the 'people'. The reader thus will be engaged in a critical history of the United States which gives the labor, civil rights, and peace movements their due. Both stories are developed pretty well, I think, and the illustrations were good as well. (I'm not exactly sure how to comment on a graphic novel other than to say I enjoyed the pictures.) I did find fault with one panel, in which the Lusitania is shown carrying tanks. The Lusitania was sunk before the development of tanks, and one of the tanks appears to be a model from the Second World War.* As for its historical credibility: I knew much of this before, having accidentally learned it for the most part. If he took liberties with the facts, they weren't obvious to someone who is -- in my and other's estimations -- a fairly well-read history student. Some interpretations are more questionable than others: no one can deny the self-serving motives of the Spanish-American War or the Indian Wars, but it's also fairly difficult to cast World War 2 in such a cynical light.

Although the book's story can be seen as somewhat grim, the number and conviction of people who have stood against the book's villains gives the reader cause for hope -- and indeed, Zinn deliberately concludes the lecture/book on a hopeful note. "There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumblings of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, [and] kindness. If we remember those times and places -- and there are so many where people have behaved magnificently -- this gives us the energy to act. Hope is the energy for change. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live in defiance of the worst of everything around us is a marvelous victory."

I'm going to recommend this one.

* This may be excusable on the basis that lay readers will more easily equate "tank" with 'weapons" than unmarked boxes of ammunition.