this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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Those are the type of answers I wasn't looking for..
It's a shame to see this thread start this way.
Stuff like Zinn is important to know about, but it isn't a very good starting place for a non-American in my opinion. If one grew up on the older and more sanitized version of American history we were taught, Zinn and those like him are important. For someone with no context, I think it would be very discouraging to start reading the dirt first. Let OP get their toes wet first before throwing them in the deep end.
OP, as I said, things like Zinn's books or talks, or if you want a little more fun, the Behind the Bastards podcasts can give you gritty deep dives into specific topics, people, or events of interest to you, so don't discount them totally. I'm glad you're looking for a factual and less biased history.
Depending where you're from, America still can have a lot of positive achievements and wild history, good and bad worth learning about. As you can see, our freedom to complain about every aspect ever about our government is a large part of that history, and that's also brought good and bad changes.
You've got to take the rough with the smooth. We have some fun stuff, but also we're a bloody-handed empire that sees itself as a "city on a hill". You can't form a coherent picture of how we got to a second trump term without looking at the ugly bits.
Trump goes back to Nixon (he basically hired all the same people that tried to cover for him, Ailes, Stone, others).
Nixon getting away with things to save the country further embarrassment goes back to the post-Civil War events.
Events leading up to the Civil War, ie. slavery, starts in the Americas between 1492 if you count the Caribbean, the 1500s if we're talking Ponce DeLeon, and the 1600s if we're looking at just the people that directly lead to modern America.
I truly hope Trump can be looked at less consequentially in the future, but we're not at the end of his time in politics yet, so who can say. He's got a lot of competition for worst president ever, he's just at the front of everyone's mind because we're in the present. I remember when we thought no one could top Bush Jr.
Ah yes the Bush years, a gilded age in conservative decency.
Jesus wept.
It snapped me out of being conservative, so there were a few positives.
I'll take nearly any dub at this point
I feel ya. I hope they spend more time infighting for power and attention and don't harm too much actual important stuff, but I won't hold my breath.
It's going to be a long couple of years...
Zinn will do as an intro, and anyone reading that first will have an easier time seeing through other history telling when and if they fall short.
I thought Zinn was not completely accurate, may be mildly confusing if no historical context , and ends decades before now: but definitely beats out the half mythological dreck taught to millions of hapless newcomers and school children