Matt Damon Book:

		List Price: $29.95		Publisher: HarperAudio Salesrank: 59391 Released: February 4, 2003
		Our Price: $17.83
		Used Price: $14.98
		Media: Audio CD

Editorial Review:
For much of his life, historian Howard Zinn has been chronicling American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official version taught in schools -- with its emphasis on great men in high places -- to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace.

A People's History of the United States CD: Highlights from the 20th Century Reviews:
History of social revolutionaries
2009-08-13 - This provides a few anecdotes of "revolutionary" history of America. In the introduction, the author proclaims he is providing a history of the individual people, instead of the common focus of the important names and dates. However, the actual focus is on people involved in left wing causes (with the focus often an key players in these rolls.) While this does provide a good background of socialist causes, it is primarily a history of liberal students and the poor that associate with their causes. (He even attempts to show a more 'broad' support for an issue by saying that in addition to the college towns, San Francisco passed a similar anti-war resolution.) The goal is obviously an attempt to paint social revolutions as being more broadly representative of the people. However, this leaves out many other things that could be interesting. The first person approach used for much of the narrative also makes it feel more like propaganda than history.

The reading of the audiobook also has something to be desired. Matt Damon's delivery is fairly well done, but very slow. Howard Zinn's comments manage to be even slower. Make sure you can play it at faster than normal speed!

Honest depiction
2009-03-31 - What you don't know can hurt you. Zinn rips the fairy tales from our history books.

The paperback is better
2009-01-13 - This is not as good as the text version. I didn't realize until after I bought it that it was selected "highlights from the 20th century," even though so much more is covered in the book. I'd strongly recommend reading the text version instead of listening to the audio.

A People's History of the United States
2008-12-27 - Provides the reader with a different perspective of the history of the United States as seen through the eyes of African Americans, Native Americans, women, prisoners, laborers. Those people who have been left behind, ignored and treated as second-class citizens. This books gives the reader an un-sanitized view of the history of these people. It is thought provoking and compelling.

Matt Damon reads the highlights
2008-12-18 - "Bottom up" perspectives, so to speak, on US history are what this is about. Often neglected groups in the conventional narratives brought to us by the public school system and Hollywood get some attention and hopefully the record set a little more straight. This book is a corrective to the warped "top down" traditional accounts of our past that we have been instilled with since childhood which conveniently many unpleasant truths. Historian Howard Zinn wanted to fix that and give us a more inclusive, richer history of our great country. I'd say nothing beats reading the book, but I'm also a fan of audio books. Matt Damon does an excellent job narrating. You can pretend your listening to Jason Bourne narrate. Perhaps Bourne has a new identity and teaches somewhere, educating his students on the dark side of American history. Anyway. A bit of trivia for you--Damon grew up next door to Howard Zinn. They're friends and you might recall in GOOD WILL HUNTING Damon's character mentioning this book to his shrink. "It'll knock you on your a**" he says to Robin Williams. And so it does. _A People's History of the United States_ is an important book. In more enlightened time kids would be given it to read in school.