For this assignment, you will read one chapter from A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. You may choose which chapter you will be focusing on. You can find the A People’s History of the United States reading in Canvas. In a 3–5-page paper, analyze the chapter, and make an argument concerning which types of historiographer trends have influenced the writing. Pull evidence from the reading to support your argument. Evidence can be examined either from individual paragraphs, or you could summarize evidence from several paragraphs that follow a similar theme. Keep in mind, you will need to watch the Historiography lecture video above and take detailed notes, in order to gain an understanding of historiographer trends.
To give you an idea of how to analyze the chapter, consider the following questions (you do not have to answer all of the below questions. I have provided them to spark ideas for your analysis):
Is this a work of traditional, Marxist, revisionist, and/or post-revisionist history? Or is it a combination of several historiographer trends?
What evidence do you have that the author’s work represents this type(s) of history?
What historical subjects does the author emphasize, (political, military, economic, class, gender, ethnic, social, etc.)?
How might the historical context of the time when the reading was written influence the author?
Who is the author’s audience (who do you think they are writing for)?
What are the author’s main arguments? How do these arguments relate to the historiographer trends?
What evidence does the author use to prove their arguments?
Does the author offer clear analysis of their evidence to show how it proves their arguments?
Does the author make any assumptions that are not backed up by specific evidence? Are there specific examples of bias on the part of the author in the reading? Cite specific examples as evidence. How does this bias relate to the school(s) of history the author is influenc
I hope I can get this same writer to complete the rough draft and final powerpoint as soon as the teacher posts her instructions. This part was great! Thank you so much.
James Raphael
This is exactly what I needed and the confidence that I am heading in the right direction to finish the assignment. Thank you so much.
Idalia Michael
