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Howard Zinn’s representation of the American Revolution should be in a modern day history textbook. Zinn emphasizes numerous times that the American Revolution was a rich, white man’s war. Dozens of examples in his book, A People’s History of the United States 1492-Present, shows Colonists as very hypocritical, craving ‘Equality’, but not showing a hint of gratitude to others, whom were not at a certain stature in social class. The American Revolution concerned men with power getting more power, and the ones with no power, getting even more discriminated. A clear distinction between the poor white community, and the rich white community existed. First of all, the poor whites couldn’t vote, so they weren’t invited to town gatherings on subjects at hand. Doing this probably got those poor whites very upset. It would compare to a bunch of kids having a party, and leaving out some kids that weren’t as cool as them. After that, Zinn states, on page 75 of his book, “… the Boston Committee of Correspondence ordered the townsmen to show up on the Common for a military draft… the poor had to serve.” They didn’t even have a say in the matter, they were just told to show up, or else they would be killed. The ones who did show up for camp, saw it as an opportunity to rise in rank, get rich, and ‘get invited to the party.’ But it’s to imagine, because those poor whites were probably put on the frontlines, and most likely didn’t make it back from war.
Approximate Word count = 944
Approximate Pages = 3.8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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