Ahh this book is so great to read.

If you consider yourself a student of history, you can't ignore the world's greatest power, the United States.

If you can't ignore the United States, then you can't really know its history without understanding how it treated American Indians, African slaves, women, unions and those who dissented from its leader's picture of manifest destiny.

History should not be the story of elite groups, it should not ignore the struggle of people to claim our humanity from powerful interests, it should not recount events divorced from the context of the wider society in which they occurred, it should not gloss over uncomfortable details in the interests of patriotism, religion or any other method of control.

Howard Zinn tries to right that wrong in this highly enjoyable and inspiring classic.

A must-read.