American History

[Redistribute the Rep]

Ok so I have my Ap United States History exam coming up in a few weeks, so to make studying less boring I thought I would seek out some texts that analyze american history from a Marxist perspective. I did find some of Marx's writings on the Civil War because he followed that closely. Does anybody know any other good resources? They don't have to be by Marx though because I also need to study 20th century history as well.

[Sinister Intents]

Could you make use of this? http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/haymarket/Haymarket.html


The Haymarket Massacre was a result of violent riots in Chicago's Haymarket Square on May 4, 1886. The riots began in reaction to police brutality during a strike for eight-hour workdays at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company the previous day. In an attempt by the police to shield strikebreakers from the strikers, one person was killed and others were wounded. On May 4, laborers demonstrated en masse and peacefully against the police action; however the protest became violent when police tried to dissolve the gathering, and an unknown person tossed a bomb into the crowd. The subsequent riot resulted in the deaths of seven policemen and an unknown number of protestors. In the aftermath of the incident, eight anarchist labor leaders, known as the Haymarket Martyrs, were arrested and convicted of instigating violence and conspiring to commit murder. However, no evidence was ever found that they were connected to the bomb. On November 10, 1887, one of the eight committed suicide while in prison, and the next day four others were hanged. In 1893, the remaining three were pardoned by Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld. Finally, in 1938, fifty-two years after the Haymarket riot, workdays in the United States were legally made eight hours by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

[Killer Enigma]

Forget Marx. The best civil war histories written by Marxist historians are James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom and Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution.

[synthesis]

I don't think Howard Zinn would be considered "Marxist" but A People's History sounds like what you're looking for.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I don't think Howard Zinn would be considered "Marxist" but A People's History sounds like what you're looking for.
It can be found online here: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/zinnapeopleshistory.html

Another book I've heard good things about is Paul Buhle's 'Marxism in the United States' although I've not yet read it.

[sosolo]

I don't think Howard Zinn would be considered "Marxist" but A People's History sounds like what you're looking for.


I'm listening to the audiobook of this right now. Not perfect, but I've learned a lot.

[The Idler]

seconded zinn

[Nemo]

We actually used Zinn as a secondary text for my APUSH class. It was far more interesting than the standard textbook, and very enlightening.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Zinn is good, especailly for a good de-bunking of myths around the American Revolution and liberal illusions in the Bill of Rights. There are several histories of the US working class from more (old-style, pro-labor) liberal to revolutionary. Foner is great on the Civil War/Reconstruction, but it's also a whole class-load by itself. I have a book called "Forever Free" which is like a reader's digest version of his 1000+ page book on Reconstruction which would probably give you a sense of a "history from below" of the Civil War.

I'd also recommend "Forging of the American Empire" which was written by a Trotskyist anti-war activist and gives pretty straight-forward history-book style account of the US developing into an industrial power and then imperial power (and how these are connected). It covers all the parts of US ruling class history that most US history classes ignore (killing native americans, early attempts to establish themselves as colonial powers... you know everything between the Civil War and WWI that history books ignore because US racist capitalism and imperial ambitions are too naked to fit into the usual school narrative about the US).

But if you are trying to supplement what you are being assigned in class, I think it might be best to find specific articles on different historical periods or events. I mean a labor history of the US just isn't going to overlap with most school history texts because it's just not considered "regular" history - it's kept to specific academic labor-history fields.