A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn is a very influential book. Watered down it can be described as such, Howard Zinn believes that every event in the history of the United states was caused either by class conflict or capitalism. Although he is no doubt right from time to time, this mindset is very narrow and clearly Marxist. There is also a serious lack of citations, and this is inexcusable for any serious writer. Not even a high school student could get away with not citing his sources. This is an oversight that is particularly significant given that most of the book is quotes. Another problem is that some quotes are so full of ellipsis that one begins to question if the quote Zinn gives is an accurate representation of what the original writer was trying to convey. Zinn owns up to the fact that his book is in no way an objective history. I would recommend the book as an interesting read and a shockingly different viewpoint, though I would highly caution anyone against taking this book as fact due to the shoddy workmanship and brazen lack of objectivity.