Comparison People's vs. Patriot's

Was Columbus a savage unlike the Native population? Or was he a saint? Both of the books A Patriot’s History of the United States and A People’s History of the United States will try to tell you the answer – their answer.

A People’s History of the United States opens right into the story of the Americas. It does not try and preface with anything that most students simply skip over because usually they are long, boring, and simply trying to reinforce what the text says or how great critic believe the text is. People’s describes the natives with words “naked” (a sign of innocence) and “full of wonder”.  The one descriptive piece they say of Columbus and his crew is that they are carrying swords. While Zinn attempts to show history through the victim’s point of view he may have over exaggerated and used people’s already guilty conscience to paint the Spanish, Europeans, and every other conqueror as a negative force.

On the other side of the scale is A Patriot’s History of the United States an extreme rightest author. This book was basically written for conservatives. Even if you took the title out of the picture the giant American flag on the center of the cover certainly isn’t subtle towards Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen’s bias. They start off the book with a long interview that basically describes how amazing the book is and how the world needed the right Right view of America’s history. This is trying to speak for the book and it’s contents before you even read it. At the end of the interview Schweikart calls the American Historical Review stupid – apparently they didn’t give him a good review. The authors take offense with “the main stream textbooks” and how they fill student with lies about their country. They try to defend their country thereby trying to turn Columbus into an adventurous explorer that had never done any wrong.

One book far to the Left, and the other far to the Right. Somewhere in the middle is the truth.