Welcome to week five of A People’s Readalong. A group of us (see the end of the post for the group, and please shout out if I’ve overlooked you) will be reading one chapter a week from Howard Zinn’s classic history book, A People’s History of the United States. We’ll be finished sometime in July. 
A long time ago (we’re talking back in my college days, which was (holy crap!) twenty years ago), my college roommate and I travelled around Europe with our Eurail passes (man, I loved that Eurail pass). After three months in England, we spent seven weeks barrelling through the major cities of Europe.
What does this have to do with A People History, you ask? Well, as I was reading this week’s chapter (Chapter 5: A Kind of Revolution), all I could thing was “good grief, it’s A.F.R.” And that instantly transported me back to Europe, when after visiting museum after museum after museum, my roomie and I hit museum overload somewhere in Italy and started referring to every museum thereafter as A.F.M. Which affectionately stands for Another Fucking Museum.
Which means that here I am at Chapter 5 with its discussion of Shays’ Rebellion and all I can think to say about it is “it was Another Fucking Rebellion.”
Seriously, people. Zinn obviously loved himself some rebellion. And yeah, that’s kinda the point of the whole book, but I’m a little maxed out on rebellions and it’s only chapter 5.
Okay…enough of Debbie Downer.
Chapter 5 is about the American Revolution (aka the G. of F. R. (in softdrink speak, that’s the grand-daddy of fucking rebellions) and how the rich got richer and the powerful got more powerful, as well as the years after the Revolution. What popped for me in this chapter wasn’t the Revolution (nor was it Shays’ Rebellion, obviously), but the fact that the new government seized all of the land belonging to the defeated British (well, unless you were besties with George Washington, and then you were okay) and redistributed it mostly to tenant farmers to bolster up the middle class, who would then act as a buffer between the increasingly obscenely wealthy and powerful and the disenfranchised poor (aka those pesky rabble-rousers). How come I never either heard of nor thought about what happened to all that land that guys like Lord Baltimore held?
Anyhoosie, I should probably fess up to the fact that colonial American history was never my fave (unless I happen to be walking around Boston, and then suddenly it’s interesting). In fact, American history only starts to really interest me when we hit the Roaring ’20s (flappers! Prohibition!). So I expect I’ll be pretty grumpy as we continue through the 1700s and into the 1800s. Nothing against Zinn, but even the people’s history of the American Revolution isn’t really doing it for me.
How is everyone else holding up?
Readalong Participants:
I agree … I couldn’t keep the rebellions straight in this one! I love how Zinn zips through the entire revolution and its aftermath in chapter! I’m starting to feel a bit bogged down by this book, actually, so I’m eternally grateful you had the genius idea to read only one chapter a week. Otherwise, I don’t know if I’d be able to make it. I too look forward to more “modern” exploitation. : )
Here’s my post for the week: http://www.lifewithbooks.com/2012/02/a-peoples-readalong-a-kind-of-revolution/
I just thought I would pop in and see how you all are doing. And I got a little treat! AFR HAHA! Hey I like rebellions, that is what made this country the great place it is. But I can see that it might get old and a little confused. And like you, I’m only interested in that time of our history when I’m in Boston, or let’s say, Williamsburg. It has to come alive and smack me upside the head to get my attention.
Zinn does seem to have some repeating themes and ideas, doesn’t he? I also am not particularly interested in this time period, and want to get to later sections of the book, but it does serve well as background for what is to come. Like you, I want to hear about prohibition and flappers, but Zinn seems to be taking the long route!
I realized in this chapter (and I agree about AFR…) I will still not be able to answer Jeopardy questions about this time period. While I feel I’m getting a nice understanding of this time, I’m not absorbing the details or remembering what distinguishes one rebellion from another or one state’s distribution of wealth from another. I’m looking forward to the next chapter when I hope the theme will shift somewhat to “women’s lives sucked too.” Here’s hoping…
We did ABCs in Europe – Another bloody castle/cathedral/croissant/choose your own c!
I am so behind on this – life got so busy in the last couple weeks! I am still on chapter 3…but I want to power through eventually because this is something I have always wanted to read.
I spent a year in Europe in college and completely understand the AFM thing. For us, it was AFC – Castles. Oh my, the castles. So fun for the first dozen, then you sort of get immune to the immensity of what you are seeing.