The people speak

Originally broadcast on the History Channel, The People Speak brings recently deceased leftist historian Zinn's 2004 collection of primary source documents to life, recounting the story of America from the perspective of ordinary citizens fighting for change, progress, and justice. Actors Matt Damon and Viggo Mortensen lead a talented cast of Hollywood and Broadway stars in this impressive production filmed onstage in both Boston and Malibu, CA, in 2008. Marisa Tomei, Morgan Freeman, David Strathairn, and others read from letters, diaries, and other sources with authority and passion. Zinn hosts the two spliced-together performances, adding context to the readings and persuasive points about democracy and the power of collective action. Music of the periods is performed live; archival photographs and videos add variety. Negligible extras, including a behind-the-scenes featurette and brief interviews with some of the actors, are just an excuse to give the stars more face time. This "bottoms-up" spin on American history has won Zinn myriad fans and foes, and this DVD will only further polarize viewers. Highly recommended for use in secondary and college classrooms to teach the use of primary sources and as an introduction to Zinn's unique historical approach.-Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

People Speak, The Chapter One Introductory Excerpt from A People's History of the United States Narrator My viewpoint, in telling the history of the United States, is that we must not accept the memory of states as our own. Nations are not communities and never have been. The history of any country, presented as the history of a family, conceals fierce conflicts of interest. And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners. Thus, in that inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis in history, I prefer to try to tell the story of the discovery of America from the viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills, the conquest of the Philippines as seen by black soldiers on Luzon, the postwar American empire as seen by peons in Latin America. And so on, to the limited extent that any one person, however he or she strains, can "see" history from the standpoint of others. My point is not to grieve for the victims and denounce the executioners. Those wars, that anger, cast into the past, deplete our moral energy for the present. And the lines are not always clear. In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run, the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims. Stiff, understanding the complexities, I will 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. I will try not to overlook the cruelties that victims inflict on one another as they are jammed together in the boxcars of the system. I don't want to romanticize them. But I do remember (in rough paraphrase) a statement I once read: "The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you don't listen to it, you will never know what justice is." People Speak, The . Copyright © by Howard Zinn. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.