g history in a broader context, however, for he sees instead that the true community of man stands outside the political divisions of the time while still being influenced by them. Zinn distrusts government and sees it as the executioner, with the people being the victims. This extends not only to the direct victims, those who are thrown off their land and subjugated by the advance of some new nationalist idea or movement, but also the people involved in the oppression as executioners themselves: "In the short run. . . the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims" (p. 10). Zinn sees the community of man as made up of victims and oppressors, usually the same people at different times.
Zinn cites Camus to the effect that history is a matter of conflict and that society is made up of conflicts between conquerors and conquered, masters and slaves, capitalists and workers, and racial and sexual dominators and dominated. History becomes a matter of taking sides, and Camus has suggested that in such a situation it is better to be on the side of the victims than on the side of the executioners. Zinn's people's history takes the side of the conquered, the slaves, the dominated, the victims. Zinn sees history as having a moral purpose as well as an educational one by teaching people of the successes of the past in order that they might take heart for their own struggle. He writes: "If history is to be creative, to anticipate a [possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, occasionally to win" (p. 11). This is what Zinn tries to do in his people's history, and he tells this to the reader at the outset so that his effort can be judged for what it is rather than by the standards of traditional h...