Patriot’s & People’s American Revolution Comparative Essay
Howard Zinn and Larry Schweikart with Michael Allen interpret American history in their respective books A People’s History of the United States and A Patriot’s History of the United States. Both books, while going in-depth in the progression of America, differ sometimes greatly in their views and opinions of events in history. Zinn differs with Schweikart and Allen in his interpretation of the American Revolution in that Zinn saw the revolution as the logical response to the oppression of Great Britain and Schweikart and Allen viewed the revolution as the glorious triumph over a great evil. In Howard Zinn’s perspective, the American Revolution was a just cause and even a genius idea …show more content…
According to them, there was a plethora of advantages to the war, even in the hardships. This opinion was made evident when they stated,” Despite the pits of corruption that have pockmarked federal and state politics—some of them quite deep—and despite abuses of civil rights that were shocking, to say the least, the concept was deeply imbedded that only a virtuous nation could achieve the lofty goals set by the Founders” (Patriot’s …show more content…
While A People’s History describes the act as a wedge between the upper and lower classes, A Patriot’s History describes it as an onerous and dangerous tax that oppressed all colonists. According to Zinn, the people in the lower class were already hurting worse that ever after the Seven Years War and the Stamp Act only made the lives of the poor harder.. It made the poor poorer and the rich stayed rich and happy (Zinn 62). This created economic tensions between the upper and lower class that affected the colonists more than the actual act. Although the classes were being separated more and more, Zinn argued that the colonists did have somewhat unified attempts to force the repeal of the act. These attempts include the tarring and feathering of tax collectors and the ransacking of their houses (Zinn 61). Groups such as the Green Mountain Boys and the Loyal Nine surfaced. The Green Mountain Boys, led by Ethan Allen, would attack loyalists and those in support of the Stamp Act. The Loyal Nine, that would later include the Sons of Liberty, also rose to fight the Stamp Act (Zinn 66). In Schweikart and Allen’s view the act was ridiculously onerous from the start and the colonists saw it as a grave danger. (Patriot’s 71). The Act was not only a direct tax on paper products, but a step toward tighter control on all literature. That meant that the paper documents like the Bible were surely going to be under British
Howard Zinn and Larry Schweikart with Michael Allen interpret American history in their respective books A People’s History of the United States and A Patriot’s History of the United States. Both books, while going in-depth in the progression of America, differ sometimes greatly in their views and opinions of events in history. Zinn differs with Schweikart and Allen in his interpretation of the American Revolution in that Zinn saw the revolution as the logical response to the oppression of Great Britain and Schweikart and Allen viewed the revolution as the glorious triumph over a great evil. In Howard Zinn’s perspective, the American Revolution was a just cause and even a genius idea …show more content…
According to them, there was a plethora of advantages to the war, even in the hardships. This opinion was made evident when they stated,” Despite the pits of corruption that have pockmarked federal and state politics—some of them quite deep—and despite abuses of civil rights that were shocking, to say the least, the concept was deeply imbedded that only a virtuous nation could achieve the lofty goals set by the Founders” (Patriot’s …show more content…
While A People’s History describes the act as a wedge between the upper and lower classes, A Patriot’s History describes it as an onerous and dangerous tax that oppressed all colonists. According to Zinn, the people in the lower class were already hurting worse that ever after the Seven Years War and the Stamp Act only made the lives of the poor harder.. It made the poor poorer and the rich stayed rich and happy (Zinn 62). This created economic tensions between the upper and lower class that affected the colonists more than the actual act. Although the classes were being separated more and more, Zinn argued that the colonists did have somewhat unified attempts to force the repeal of the act. These attempts include the tarring and feathering of tax collectors and the ransacking of their houses (Zinn 61). Groups such as the Green Mountain Boys and the Loyal Nine surfaced. The Green Mountain Boys, led by Ethan Allen, would attack loyalists and those in support of the Stamp Act. The Loyal Nine, that would later include the Sons of Liberty, also rose to fight the Stamp Act (Zinn 66). In Schweikart and Allen’s view the act was ridiculously onerous from the start and the colonists saw it as a grave danger. (Patriot’s 71). The Act was not only a direct tax on paper products, but a step toward tighter control on all literature. That meant that the paper documents like the Bible were surely going to be under British