My dad recommended this book to me, calling it an excellent book to understanding American history. However, when I looked online to find out more about it, people were calling it dated, biased, and leaving out important chapters of American history. For those who have read it, would you say it's a worthy book for someone trying to learn more about the United States, and if not, would you mind explaining why? Thank you!
There's a whole FAQ section that's dedicated to Zinn:
You - and your Dad- might also be interested in this very good critique of Zinn in Dissent magazine. Note this isn't what Bill O'Reilly thinks of him, but what's in an openly left-leaning magazine.
You won't find many historians who think much of Zinn. I myself would like to, I don't know, hire ninjas to replace every copy of Zinn with Jill Lepore's These Truths. Unlike Zinn, she's a real historian, actually does research. If Zinn's big complaint was that the common people of the US have been neglected in the history books, she does her best to include them.