While most history textbooks tell stories from the perspective of the wealthy and powerful, Zinn shows how things happened from the perspective of the powerless. For example, in Chapter 3: "Persons of Mean and Vile Condition," the author focuses on poor whites, blacks, and Native Americans, and their "unfair treatment by the wealthier classes," (50). Zinn also demonstrates throughout a People's History of the United States how racism and bigotry became institutionalized and acceptable practices, and critiques colonial America as being definitively "feudal" in nature (48).

People's History of America exposes the dark side of American politics throughout the history of the nation, not aggrandizing or idealizing typical heroes and founding fathers like most history books do. For example, Zinn shows how men like Alexander Hamilton were overtly concerned with preserving elitist privilege in American politics and went out of their ways to ignore dissenting voices. The elitist culture of...
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