A Young People's History of the United States brings to US history the viewpoints of workers, slaves, immigrants, women, Native Americans, and others whose stories, and their impact, are rarely included in books for young people. A Young People's History of the United States is also a companion volume to The People Speak, the film adapted from A People's History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States.

Beginning with a look at Christopher Columbus’s arrival through the eyes of the Arawak Indians, then leading the reader through the struggles for workers’ rights, women’s rights, and civil rights during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and ending with the current protests against continued American imperialism, Zinn in the volumes of A Young People’s History of the United States presents a radical new way of understanding America’s history. In so doing, he reminds readers that America’s true greatness is shaped by our dissident voices, not our military generals.

霍华德•津恩（Howard Zinn）

历史学家、剧作家、社会活动家。1922年生于纽约一个犹太裔工人家庭,23岁时作为美国空军的一名投弹手参加了二战,这一经历促成了他日后强烈的反战观点。战后,津恩先后就读于纽约大学和哥伦比亚大学,获得博士学位。在黑人女子学院斯佩尔曼学院教授了七年历史后,津恩在波士顿大学担任政治学教授,直到24年后退休。

1980年,《美国人民的历史》出版,并获得1981年国家图书奖提名。津恩以被压迫人民的抗争为视角,叙述了一部以人民反抗运动为主题的美国史,取代标准历史教科书,在美国大学和高中广泛教授,纽约时报称其二十多年来“年均销售超过十万册”,成为美国最受欢迎的历史教材。

2008年,津恩成立了“津恩教育计划”,在全美各地的初、高中推广教授《美国人民的历史》。从20世纪60年代投身黑人民权运动,到后来反对越战、伊战的和平运动,津恩活跃在社会舞台上超过半个世纪,2010年获得马丁•路德•金人道主义奖表彰。同年,津恩在加州圣莫尼卡去世。