Howard Zinn Rhetorical Analysis

1.) Howard Zinn’s main purpose for writing A People’s History of the United States is to give history in an un-biased manner. For example, he says that he will not glorify any movement and denounce any ‘bad guy’ in history; he will give information as it should be given. Fairly.

As Zinn presents his weakly-formed argument in chapter one of “A People’s History of the United States,” he uses unconventional amounts of emotion and factual details in an attempt to relay his message that textbooks and historians deliberately exclude alternative perspectives in order to

America is a nation that is often glorified in textbooks as a nation of freedom, yet history shows a different, more radical viewpoint. In Howard Zinn’s A People's History of the United States, we take a look at American history through a different lens, one that is not focused on over glorifying our history, but giving us history through the eyes of the people. “This is a nation of inconsistencies”, as so eloquently put by Mary Elizabeth Lease highlights a nation of people who exploited and sought to keep down those who they saw as inferior, reminding us of more than just one view on a nation’s history, especially from people and a gender who have not had an easy ride.

Zinn does not want to grieve for the victims and condemn the executioners. He will not overlook the cruelties that people inflicted upon one another throughout history. He will not romanticize the harsh truths of the world. Zinn says that his book will be quite skeptical of government, politics, and culture. He tells the reader that before they continue to read they should know that his book will be a blunt recollection of history and nothing more.

Zinn begins by speaking of Hollywood movies that glorify war, like “Saving Private Ryan.” but then he expands his focus to cover the Mexican War, the Phillipino War, Mother Jones, the Ludlow Massacre, and the New England textile strikes. It’s a dazzling tour through not only movies that are rarely made, but also through events in history that public schools gloss over or ignore completely. Zinn, the radical historian and the intellectual, reflects the most striking images about the remarkable work of archives, unveiling children working in textile factories or even the mounted police striking protesters.

Zinn is expressing his feeling of injustice in our country. We took land from the Hispanic people by force, then we call them aliens to an area where they have deep historical roots. We prevent immigrants from coming here when we really have no right to prevent anything. These lands were habited by other people before anything American was established. So what right do we have to say who can come here and who cannot. But the government making decisions to send people off to war for the worst reasons of greed and personal gain is just wrong. Zinn is expressing some of the horrible things about our country.

Upon reading Zittrain's essay "The Case for Kill Switches in Military Weaponry", I found that the author used all three rhetorical appeals, which are ethos, pathos, and logos. The first one that I noticed while reading is logos. After looking for the definition, Logos is an appeal to logic and it's a way of persuading an audience by reason. In the essay, Zittrain said, " There is a reason tank operators start their vehicles with a switch requiring no ignition key or code—it is too easy to misplace or become separated from keys on a battlefield, even at the cost of unauthorized access". The author used this logic to explain how tank operators always use a switch that requires no ignition key or code to prevent hackers, same as the example of

Andrew Johnston English 101 Wendy Rider October 10, 2015 Rhetorical Analysis of “The Rules about the Rules” In the article “The Rules about the Rules,” Stephen L. Carter uses the rhetorical strategy of pathos to speak about integrity. A topic that is heard by Americans, but no one knows what the true definition is. Carter writes "The Rules about the Rules" using stories and examples that people can relate too, to persuade the audience that we say a lot of things we don’t mean. As Carter goes from one main point to another, he makes his points clear.

Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is a distinct alternative to most mainstream history textbooks. Zinn’s perspective of different complicated historical issues is exemplified through his unique writing and helps the reader understand different convoluted events. The point of view that Zinn chooses allows him to express hardships and struggles through the perspective of America's victims, slaves, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and the immigrant laborers. By speaking for the voiceless, Zinn is able to provide readers ample detail while looking at sensitive times in American history. Zinn starts with Columbus and progressively moves into recent history; he extensively illustrates the hidden class struggles and the fight to replace a broken political system, but still remains insightful and takes a holistic approach while evaluating American History.

The impact of the unknow is only holding us back from our greatest potential. Zinn goes in great depths describing the true American History and the impact it has made for the future. The America that is displayed in the book has a more realistic viewpoint of many of our tragic events, that occurred and made an impact to change our history. Overall through our good and bad as a nation we need to grown to ecapt all as it is, for it makes who we are and what our history is. Applying the truth now only opens the door of the positive possibilities to come from learning from our worst disasters, to greatest victories. This shows the highs and lows, the reality of what actually occurred to make natural Americans. Zinn describes in his Afterword that

Howard Zinn “A power Governments cannot suppress” writes: Thoreau did not have much hope for the government (useless or less than useless) nor for those who serves the slave master (a fool made conspicuous by a painted coat) he expected more from citizens.

He wanted to present the history from the point of view of the common people, rather than from the point of view of historians or politicians. "Zinn 's main purpose for writing his book is...not to be on the side of the executioners, but to shed light on the side of the various people and cultures who were ignored or deleted from history lessons. In other words, Zinn wants to tell the story of the underdog, the men and women who have been hidden in between the spoken and written words of others."

through failure we have now found our way back to our own principles and values, and

Perfectly summarized in one sentence, the words “And in a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners” uttered by Howard Zinn in the first chapter of A People’s History of the United States demonstrate the influence of voice in not only America but in society as well. In unity there is strength, a well-known proverb states, and there is one constant among famous quotes in that they can be applied to almost any situation, event, or idea, for that they are always true. This particular idea should not be excluded from that notion, considering Zinn’s quote is muchly similar to the proverb’s main idea, only worded differently. His

For example, according to Howards Zinn “we need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our times has been always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against