A RENEGADE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES: From th

In his contrarian classic The People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn showed that there are compelling, saleable alternative histories that are both scholarly and valuable. Over a decade after that book first came out, it has become a staple to understanding American culture. Now, the popular professor Thaddeus Russell provides a challenging new way of reading history that will turn convention on its head and is sure to elicit as much controversy as it does support. Russell has written an engaging popular history of the United States that argues that it was not the elitists who created real revolution in America, but it was the people who lived on the fringes of society who laid the foundation for change and who were responsible for American ideals being what they are today. American history was driven by clashes between those interested in preserving social order and those more interested in pursuing their own desires -- the 'respectable' versus the 'degenerate', the moral versus the immoral, 'good citizens' versus the 'bad'; for better or worse, this country has been shaped from the bottom up by the prejudices and ideals of the masses. Provocative and compellingly argued, The People's History of the United States is sure to become a new classic of revisionist history.