A Young People's History of the United States

The book describes World War I as a “pit of death” (221), and Zinn concludes that “no one has ever been able to show that the war brought any gain for humanity that would be worth a single life” (219). Critics at the time “called it an ‘imperialist war’—a war fought in the service of empire building, by nations that wanted to increase their power by controlling territory or resources” (219). Zinn essentially endorses this characterization, noting that capitalist nations in Europe created the conflict by arguing over boundaries, colonies in Africa, and plans for expansion into new regions.

The US entered the war in 1917, three years after it began in Europe. Most of the chapter focuses on the impact of the international war within the US from an angle that highlights the goals of the government and special interest groups at the time.

The war originally boosted the US economy. Americans rebounded from a domestic economic downturn by “manufacturing war materials to sell to the Allies [Britain and France]” (223). The US directly involved itself in the conflict after a German submarine sunk a ship that had American passengers aboard, although Zinn notes that that boat was heavily armed with US-manufactured war supplies for the British and that what really “drew the United States into the fight” was “the questions of shipping in the North Atlantic Ocean” (221). Again, Zinn highlights capitalism as the driving force of decision-making among US politicians.

Few Americans enlisted to fight overseas, so the government instituted a draft (which many evaded). In addition, the US government passed the Espionage Act and began arresting “Americans who spoke or wrote against the war” (224). “The press,” Zinn notes, “worked with the government to create an atmosphere of fear for anyone who dared to criticize the war” (226). However, criticism was strong, especially from the Socialist Party and labor unions like the IWW, both of which the government targeted with raids and arrests. In fact, because socialism seemed to be swaying so many Americans, the government seized on its wartime power inflation “to destroy the radical union [the IWW]” (230), deport non-citizens from the US who were likely to be foreign-born members of the working class, and make examples of alleged anarchist criminals by executing them on weak evidence. World War I rocked American society but did not dismantle its systems.

Popular history often characterizes the 1920s as steeped in mythology that glorifies the age in line with cultural developments like jazz music and a particular version of women’s liberation in the flapper figure. However, the decade was tumultuous and ended in despair for millions of Americans. Through the decade, anti-Black racist violence mounted as terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists targeted Black families through threats and direct violence. Labor activism died off after a robust year in 1919, though factory and farm conditions remained dismal and dangerous. Many middle-class white Americans, conversely, enjoyed low unemployment rates and increased prosperity. Women won the right to vote, although Zinn characterizes the event as entirely unrevolutionary because it did not usher in great political change.

The US fell into the economic collapse known as the “Great Depression” just before the onset of the 1930s. The reasons are complex, but a contributing factor was the collapse of the stock market and urban banks, which, in turn, shut down businesses and skyrocketed unemployment. In addition, the environmental crisis known as the “Dust Bowl” hurt farmers across the West, though the book focuses mostly on the urban dimension of the era.

Americans elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the presidency, and he enacted his “New Deal” program to deal with the unprecedented economic crisis. People were desperate and rebellious, and Roosevelt aimed to quash the threat of all-out class warfare and “reorganize capitalism” (249). Sweeping legislation recovered banks and provided jobs in arts initiatives and rural and urban infrastructure programs. For example, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) oversaw the construction of government-owned dams and power plants, which provided jobs and cheap electricity to many Americans. Zinn notes that these “socialistic” (249) efforts stabilized the country. Without question, however, they disproportionately benefited white people. In fact, the New Deal did virtually nothing to assist sectors of the economy dominated by Black workers.

Some major developments in labor law were the advent of the 40-hour work week in the 1930s, as well as the end of child labor, a new minimum wage, and the Social Security system. However, New Deal organizations snuffed out the labor movement and sympathized with management rather than workers. By the end of the decade, “Capitalism had not changed” (255).

Zinn opens by discussing the broad strokes of World War II, including the military alliances that fought, the goals of each side, and the war’s immediate outcomes. In some ways, World War II “was a war against evil” because Allied Forces (the US, Britain, and the Soviet Union) fought against the genocidal regime of Germany’s Adolf Hitler. However, Zinn notes that Hitler’s atrocities, like his colossal attack on Jewish people and other minority groups in the genocide called the Holocaust, were not what directly brought the US into the war. The US entered the war after Japan (an ally of Germany) attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and thereby damaged “a link in the American Pacific empire” (259). Zinn adds that “American diplomats and businessmen worked hard to make sure that when the war ended American economic power would be second to none in the world” (260-61). They were largely successful in this effort, although it took dropping bombs and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany—and eventually the first use of nuclear weapons (the atomic bomb) in Japan—for the US and its allies to end the war.

The author then turns to the war’s broader outcomes, particularly its major influence on American politics and society. The US was in a global position of power after World War II, particularly because leading European nations had been bombed and devastated by the war. Patriotism was high in the US, and there was “enough prosperity for enough people to keep them from becoming rebellious” (268). Again, war had been good for the American economy. Immediately after World War II, however, “Harry S. Truman [the new American president] built a mood of crisis that came to be called the Cold War” (268). The US government and media led Americans to believe that Soviet (Russian) Communism was an immediate threat that could overturn American democracy—and democracy abroad. Political parties united around this narrative and carried out invasive searches for spies and political dissenters (especially communists, or “Reds”) within the US. The government even sent troops to fight communism abroad (as in the Korean War in the early 1950s). Conservativism (a trend that would continue through the end of the century) rose noticeably, along with demonization of the “Left.”