Howard Zinn’s books have inspired students and activists of all ages, affirming the power of ordinary people to influence the course of history. In La Otra Historia of Los Estados Unidos, the definitive Spanish-language edition of Zinn’s classic A People’s History of the United States, Zinn takes on the standard narrative of American history showing the lie behind the official history — exposing Columbus not as discoverer, but as murderer; the Founding Fathers not as liberators but the foundation of a new and moneyed elite–at the same time championing alternate American heroes, from Bartolomeo de las Casas to Tecumseh to Cesar Chavez, who successfully put a challenge to American imperial power, and won. Now updated and expanded through the Bush presidency, La Otra Historia de Los Estados Unidos reminds us, once again, that America’s true greatness lies not in its military generals, but in its dissident voices.
“The official history is not usually very democratic, so to speak: it reduces the past to meetings and failed meetings, acts of heroism and infamy of a group of selected ones, that as a general rule are white, overly masculine, (part of the) military and wealthy. This book by Howard Zinn is an important contribution to the recovery of memory as democratic space.” -Eduardo Galeano
“Professor Zinn writes with an enthusiasm rarely encountered in the leaden prose of academic history, and his text is studded with telling quotations from labor leaders, war resisters, and fugitive slaves.” -Eric Foner, The New York Times Book Review
