Answers.com

Howard Zinn

 
Who2 Biography: Howard Zinn, Historian
 
Howard Zinn
Source

  • Born: 1922 (?)
  • Birthplace: New York, New York
  • Best Known As: Boat-rocking U.S. historian

Howard Zinn is most famous for his 1980 book A People's History of the United States, a "radical" view that has earned him the reputation of revising history with an anti-American bias. Called "history from the bottom up" by some, Zinn's book sought to tell the story of the United States from the perspective of the disenfranchised minorities rather than the more traditional perspective of the powerful elite. A decorated veteran of World War II, Zinn was educated at Columbia University in New York, then taught in Georgia during the 1950s. In the late 1960s he began teaching at Boston University in the political science department, and he and Noam Chomsky (of MIT) were two of the nation's most prominent academics in opposition to the war in Vietnam; in the '70s and '80s he was a critic of U.S. policy in Central America; and in the '90s he was a critic of the Gulf War. His social activism and written works have earned him scorn over the years, but his history book is a standard text in many U.S. high schools and he has had a strong influence on the public's perception of Columbus, the Founding Fathers and American foreign policy.

Search unanswered questions...
Enter a word or phrase...
All Community Q&A Reference topics
 
Artist: Howard Zinn
Top

Similar Artists:

Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, Jello Biafra
  • Active: '90s, 2000s
  • Genres: Spoken Word
  • Instrument: Vocals, Performer, Liner Notes
  • Representative Albums: "Artists in a Time of War," "Stories Hollywood Never Tells," "The People's History Project: Vol. 1"

Biography

One of America's most respected political activists and thinkers, Howard Zinn was born on December 7, 1922, in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Zinn's political consciousness was awakened when he served as a fighter pilot during World War II; after the war, Zinn attended college under the G.I Bill and received a master's degree in history from Columbia University. Zinn took a position as a professor at Spelman College, a school for African-American women in Georgia, in 1956. Zinn became an active participant in the burgeoning civil rights movement that was emerging in Atlanta, and became an advisor to the influential activist group the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

In 1963, Zinn's activism on behalf of civil rights and against the Vietnam War resulted in his being fired from Spelman; Boston University added Zinn to their faculty, where he would remain until he retired from education. Zinn would later became a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bologna. A prolific author, in 1980 Zinn published A People's History of the United States, a look at American history from the point of view of the disenfranchised, which would go on to sell over a million copies; he's also been a frequent contributor to a number of magazines, and has written a number of plays on radical political figures in history. Zinn is also a frequent speaker at colleges and on radio, and several recordings of his talks have been released through the leftist publishing house AK Press. ~ Mark Deming, All Music Guide
 
Biography: Howard Zinn
Top

American political scientist and historian Howard Zinn (born 1922) was a leading exponent of the New Left perspective in scholarship and a political radical known for his activity in the civil rights and peace movements.

Howard Zinn was born on August 24, 1922, in New York City. During World War II, he served from 1943 to 1945 as a second lieutenant in the United States Army Air Force and participated in bombing missions in Europe. He was awarded an Air Medal and several battle stars. After his discharge from the service he attended New York University and received his bachelor's degree in 1951. He did graduate work in political science at Columbia University, completing his masters degree in 1952 and his Ph.D. in 1958. During this time he was an instructor at Upsala College in East Orange, NJ, from 1953 to 1956.

Zinn's doctoral dissertation on New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's congressional career was published in 1959 as LaGuardia in Congress. Zinn portrayed LaGuardia as a feisty liberal Republican who fought for pro-labor legislation and criticized the upper-class bias of his party's economic policies. Although LaGuardia would remain one of his heroes, Zinn's own political views grew much more radical. In Zinn's introduction to his anthology New Deal Thought (1965), he argued that President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his leading advisers thwarted a possible American social revolution by pursuing the modest goal of restoring the American middle class to prosperity and rejecting more radical social reform.

Civil Rights Activist

Events in the late 1950s and early 1960s reinforced Zinn's disillusionment with American liberalism. In 1956 he moved to Atlanta, GA, to accept a post as chairman of the department of history and social science at Spelman College, an African-American women's school. During the seven years he taught there, Zinn saw and participated in some of the key events of the civil rights movement. He was shocked by the violence directed at African-Americans and dismayed by the federal government's failure to defend their rights more vigorously. Zinn was critical of President John Kennedy's administration. Though it was regarded as liberal by many Americans, it seemed to Zinn to be weak in response to demands for equality.

Zinn's study of one of the major civil rights organizations, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was published as SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964). The book was both an impassioned first-hand description of the civil rights struggle and a cogent historical analysis of the modern movement's links with pre-Civil War abolitionism.

Anti-War Activist

Zinn joined Boston University's Government Department in 1964 and remained a professor of political science there the rest of his career. He became well known in New Left circles for his opposition to United States military involvement in Vietnam. In his book Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal (1967), he made a powerful case for reversing the Lyndon Johnson administration's policy of escalation. Zinn's role in the peace movement was not limited to his scholarly writings. Throughout the mid-1960s he was active in the American Mobilization Committee's national drive to bring an end to the United States intervention. In February 1968, he travelled to North Vietnam with the radical priest, Father Daniel Berrigan, to secure the release of three American bomber pilots shot down on air raids. As he had done earlier with his experiences in the civil rights movement, Zinn wrote articles that offered a first-hand account of his trip to Hanoi.

Traditional academics scolded Zinn for being partisan about his subject matter. In a collection of his essays, The Politics of History (1970), Zinn rejected the view that historical scholarship was objective. He argued that all historical writing was political and that historians should align themselves with humane values. To fail to speak out against evil, he warned, was to be irrelevant and irresponsible. Zinn sought to illustrate the usefulness of a politically engaged approach to history in his essays on World War II, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War. They provided examples of how his historical approach worked in practice.

People's Historian

When critics charged that the New Left historians' work was deficient because radical scholars had not produced a full-scale synthesis of American history, Zinn set to work to prove them wrong. Zinn's A People's History of the United States (1980), surveyed all of American history from the point of view of the working classes and minority groups. He documented the history of race, sex, and class; the history of civil disobedience; how hopes for a more egalitarian society had been frustrated, and how a small, upper-class elite had retained its hold on power and wealth. "Zinn admits his bias candidly," noted reviewer Luther Spoehr in Saturday Review "insisting that 'we need some counter force to avoid being crushed into submission."' Eric Foner, in the New York Times Book Review, said the book could be considered "a step toward a coherent new version of American history." In 1984, the book was abridged and updated and republished as The Twentieth Century: A People's History.

Zinn remained active in leftist politics and contributed to scholarly journals and popular publications, including Harper's, Saturday Review and The Nation. With his wife Roslyn, he had two children. He became a professor emeritus at Boston University in 1988. In 1985, he published a play, Daughter of Venus, which was first performed at New York's Theatre for New City. In 1990, his book Declarations of Independence continued his populist approach to American history.

Further Reading

A brief sketch of Zinn's career appears in Nelson Lichtenstein, editor, Political Profiles: The Johnson Years (1976). See also the references cited in the text for Zinn's "personal" approach to current history. Reviews of his major books are in the New York Times Book Review (June 4, 1967; February 16, 1969; September 20, 1970; March 2, 1980; July 22, 1984).

 
Quotes By: Howard Zinn
Top

Quotes:

"We will not know unless we begin."

 
Wikipedia: Howard Zinn
Top
Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn Speaking at Marlboro College Feb. 2004
Born August 24, 1922 (1922-08-24) (age 86)
Brooklyn, New York
Occupation Professor, Historian, Playwright
Spouse(s) Roslyn Zinn

Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is a professor, political scientist, historian, social critic, socialist, activist and playwright, best known as author of the bestseller[1] A People's History of the United States.

Zinn has been active in the movements for Civil Rights, Civil Liberties and the anti-war movements in the United States.[2] He has written extensively on all three subjects.

The author of some 20 books, Zinn is Professor Emeritus in the Political Science Department at Boston University. He lives in the Auburndale neighborhood of Newton, Massachusetts. His late wife of 64 years, Roslyn Zinn, died[3] on May 14, 2008 at their home. An artist and editor, Roslyn had a role in editing all of Zinn's books and many of his articles.[4] Zinn has two children, Myla and Jeff, and five grandchildren.

Contents

Biography

Early life

Howard Zinn was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn. His father, Eddie Zinn, born in Austria-Hungary, emigrated to the United States with his brother Phil before the outbreak of World War I. Howard's mother Jenny Zinn emigrated from the Eastern Siberian city of Irkutsk.

Both parents were factory workers with limited education when they met and married, and there were no books or magazines in the series of apartments where they raised their children. Zinn's parents introduced him to literature by sending 25 cents plus a coupon to the New York Post for each of the 20 volumes of Charles Dickens' collected works.[5] He also studied creative writing at Thomas Jefferson High School in a special program established by poet Elias Lieberman.[6]

Howard Zinn in Wellfleet on Cape Cod.

As a young adult, Zinn worked as a shipyard worker and labor organizer in the Brooklyn shipyards. Later, Zinn was a bombardier aboard a B-17 with the 490th Bombardment Group, and conducted bombing missions in Europe during World War II. Zinn's participation in these missions shaped his later opposition to war and aerial bombing.

After World War II, Zinn attended New York University on the GI Bill, graduating with a B.A. in 1951 and Columbia University, where he earned an M.A. (1952) and Ph.D. in history with a minor in political science (1958). His doctoral dissertation LaGuardia in Congress was a study of Fiorello LaGuardia's congressional career, and depicted LaGuardia representing "the conscience of the twenties" as LaGuardia fought for public power, the right to strike, and the redistribution of wealth by taxation. "His specific legislative program," Zinn wrote, "was an astonishingly accurate preview of the New Deal." It was published by the Cornell University Press for the American Historical Association.

Military service

Zinn was second Lieutenant and bombardier, U.S. Army Air Corps; Zinn flew combat missions in Europe between 1943 and 1945.

Education

Zinn obtained his B.A. from New York University in 1951, his M.A. and Ph.D. in Columbia University in 1952 and 1958 respectively. He was also a Post-doctoral Fellow in East Asian Studies at Harvard University from 1960 to 61.

Academic career

Zinn was Professor of History, Spelman College, Atlanta, GA from 1956 to 1963. Later he was Professor of Political Science, Boston University from 1964 to 1988. He is the Visiting Professor and Rhodes Scholar at both the University of Paris and University of Bologna

Civil Rights movement

In 1956, Zinn was appointed chairman of the department of history and social sciences at Spelman College, where he participated in the Civil Rights movement. For example, Zinn lobbied with historian August Meier[7] "to end the practice of the Southern Historical Association of holding meetings at segregated hotels.[8]

At Spelman, Zinn served as an adviser to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and, in 1964, later wrote the book SNCC: The New Abolitionists.

At Spelman, Zinn collaborated with historian Staughton Lynd and mentored young student activists, among them writer Alice Walker and Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund. In a journal article, Edelman discusses Zinn as major influence in her life and she tells of his accompanying students to a sit-in at the segregated white section of the Georgia state legislature.[9]

Although Zinn was a tenured professor, he was dismissed, in June 1963, after siding with students in their desire to challenge Spelman's traditional emphasis of turning out "young ladies" when, as Zinn described in an article in The Nation, Spelman students were likely to be found on the picket line, or in jail for participating in the greater effort to break down segregation in public places in Atlanta. Zinn's years at Spelman are recounted in his autobiography You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times. His seven years at Spelman College, Zinn said, "are probably the most interesting, exciting, most educational years for me. I learned more from my students than my students learned from me."[10]

While at Spelman, Zinn wrote that he observed 30 violations of the First and Fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution in Albany, Georgia, including the rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and equal protection of the laws. In an article on the civil rights movement in Albany, Zinn described the people who participated in the Freedom Rides to end segregation, and of the reluctance of President John F. Kennedy to enforce the law.[11] Zinn has also pointed out that the Justice Department under Robert F. Kennedy and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, did little to nothing to stop the segregationists from brutalizing civil rights workers.[12]

Zinn wrote frequently about the struggle for civil rights, both as a participant and historian[13] His second book, The Southern Mystique[14] was published in the same year as his book on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 1964. In the book on SNCC, Zinn describes how the sit-ins against segregation were initiated by students and, in that sense, independent of the older, more established civil rights organizations.

He returned to Spelman in 2005 to give the commencement address.[15] His speech "Against Discouragement,"[16] is available online at numerous sources.

Anti-war efforts

Fresh from writing two books about his research, observations, and participation in the Civil Rights movement in the South, Zinn accepted a position in the political science department at Boston University in 1964. His classes in civil liberties were among the most popular offered at BU with as many as 400 students subscribing each semester to the non-required class. He taught at BU for 24 years and retired in 1988. Zinn wrote one of the earliest books calling for the U.S. withdrawal from its war in VietNam. VietNam: The Logic of Withdrawal was published by Beacon Press in 1967 after articles that would later form the basis for the book had appeared in Commonweal, The Nation, The Register-Leader, and Ramparts.

World War II

Zinn eagerly joined the Army Air Force during World War II to fight fascism, and he bombed targets in Berlin, Czechoslovakia and Hungary.[17] Zinn's anti-war stance was, in part, informed by his own experiences in the military. In April, 1945, he participated in one of the first military uses of napalm, which took place in Royan, France.[18]

2nd Lieut. Howard Zinn, bombardier, Army Air Force in England, 1945.

The bombings were aimed at German soldiers who were, in Zinn's words, hiding and waiting out the closing days of the war. The attacks killed not only the German soldiers but also French civilians, facts Zinn uncovered nine years after the bombings when he visited Royan to examine documents and interview residents. In his books, The Politics of History and The Zinn Reader, he described how the bombing was ordered at the war's end by decision-makers most probably motivated by the desire for career advancement rather than for legitimate military objectives.

Zinn said his experience as a bombardier, combined with his research into the reasons for and effects of the bombing of Royan, sensitized him to the ethical dilemmas faced by G.I.s during wartime.[19] Zinn questioned the justifications for military operations inflicting civilian casualties in the Allied bombing of cities such as Dresden, Royan, Tokyo, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, Hanoi during the U.S. war in Vietnam, and Baghdad during the U.S. war in Iraq. In his pamphlet "Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence", Zinn laid out the case against targeting civilians.[20]

Vietnam

Zinn's diplomatic visit to Hanoi with Rev. Daniel Berrigan, during the Tet Offensive in January 1968, resulted in the return of three American airmen, the first American POWs released by the North Vietnamese since the U.S. bombing of that nation had begun. The event was widely reported in the news media and discussed in a variety of books including Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam 1963-1975 by Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan.[21] Zinn remained friends and allies with the brothers Dan and Philip over the years.

Daniel Ellsberg, a former RAND consultant who had secretly copied The Pentagon Papers, which described internal planning and policy decisions of the United States in the Vietnam War, gave a copy of them to Howard and Roslyn Zinn.[22] Along with Noam Chomsky, Zinn edited and annotated the copy of The Pentagon Papers that Ellsberg entrusted to him. Zinn's longtime publisher, Beacon Press, published what has come to be known as the Senator Mike Gravel edition of The Pentagon Papers, four volumes plus a fifth volume with analysis by Chomsky and Zinn.

At Ellsberg's criminal trial for theft, conspiracy, and espionage in connection with the publication of the Pentagon Papers by The New York Times, defense attorneys called Zinn as an expert witness to explain to the jury the history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from World War II to 1963. Zinn discussed that history for several hours, later reflecting on his time before the jury. "I explained there was nothing in the papers of military significance that could be used to harm the defense of the United States, that the information in them was simply embarrassing to our government because what was revealed, in the government's own interoffice memos, was how it had lied to the American public. The secrets disclosed in the Pentagon Papers might embarrass politicians, might hurt the profits of corporations wanting tin, rubber, oil, in far-off places. But this was not the same as hurting the nation, the people," Zinn wrote in his autobiography. Most of the jurors later said they voted for acquittal. [p. 161] However, the federal judge dismissed the case on the grounds it had been tainted by President Nixon's administration's burglary of the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

Zinn's testimony as to the motivation for government secrecy was confirmed in 1989 by Erwin Griswold, who as U.S. solicitor general during the Nixon administration, prosecuted The New York Times in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971.[23] Griswold persuaded three Supreme Court justices to vote to stop The New York Times from continuing to publish the Pentagon Papers, an order known as "prior restraint" that has been held to be illegal under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The papers were simultaneously published in The Washington Post, effectively nulling the effect of the prior restraint order. In 1989, Griswold admitted there was no national security damage from publication of the papers[23] In a column in the Washington Post, Griswold wrote: "It quickly becomes apparent to any person who has considerable experience with classified material that there is massive over classification and that the principal concern of the classifiers is not with national security, but with governmental embarrassment of one sort or another."

Zinn supported the G.I. antiwar movement during the U.S. war in Vietnam. In the 2001 film Unfinished Symphony, Zinn provides historical context for the 1971 antiwar march by Vietnam Veterans against the War. The marchers traveled from Lexington, Massachusetts, to Bunker Hill, "which retraced Paul Revere's ride of 1775 and ended in the massive arrest of 410 veterans and civilians by the Lexington police." The film depicts "scenes from the 1971,[24] during which former G.I.s testified about atrocities" they either participated in or witnessed in Vietnam.[25]

Iraq

Zinn opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and has written several books about it. He asserts that the U.S. will end its war with, and occupation of, Iraq when resistance within the military increases, in the same way resistance within the military contributed to ending the U.S. war in Vietnam. He compares the demand by a growing number of contemporary U.S. military families to end the war in Iraq to the parallel "in the Confederacy in the Civil War, when the wives of soldiers rioted because their husbands were dying and the plantation owners were profiting from the sale of cotton, refusing to grow grains for civilians to eat."[26] Zinn argued that "There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable."[27]

Jean-Christophe Agnew, Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University, [5] told the Yale Daily News in May 2007 that Zinn’s historical work is "highly influential and widely used".[28] He observed that it is not unusual for prominent professors such as Zinn to weigh in on current events, citing a resolution opposing the war in Iraq that was recently ratified by the American Historical Association.[29] Agnew added, “In these moments of crisis, when the country is split — so historians are split.”[30]

A People's History of the United States

As a historian, Zinn came to believe that the point of view expressed in traditional history books was often limited. He wrote a history textbook, A People's History of the United States with the goal to provide other perspectives of American history. The textbook depicts the struggles of Native Americans against European and U.S. conquest and expansion, slaves against slavery, unionists and other workers against capitalists, women against patriarchy, and African-Americans for civil rights.

In the years since the first edition of A People's History was published in 1980, it has been used as an alternative to standard textbooks in many high school and college history courses, and is one of the most widely known examples of critical pedagogy. According to the New York Times Book Review it "routinely sells more than 100,000 copies a year".[31]

In the spring of 2003, to commemorate the sale of the millionth copy of A People's History, a dramatic reading was held at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. The reading featured Danny Glover, Andre Gregory, James Earl Jones, actress Myla Pitt, Marisa Tomei, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Alfre Woodard, Harris Yulin, Jeff Zinn, producing artistic director of the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater [6], and Howard Zinn as narrator. The event aired on Democracy Now!, and was hosted by Amy Goodman, and is online at Democracy Now The program was also released as a book and CD under the title, The People Speak: American Voices, Some Famous, Some Little Known.

Interwoven with commentary by Zinn, both the book and the dramatic reading upon which the newer book is based, includes passages from Zinn's research in A People's History of the United States on Christopher Columbus on the Arawaks; Plough Jogger, a farmer and participant in Shays' Rebellion; Harriet Hanson, a Lowell mill worker; Frederick Douglass; Mark Twain; Mary Harris "Mother" Jones; Emma Goldman; Helen Keller; Eugene V. Debs; Langston Hughes; Genova Johnson Dollinger on a sit-down strike at General Motors in Flint, Michigan; an interrogation from a 1953 HUAC hearing; Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper and member of the Freedom Democratic Party; Malcolm X; and James Lawrence Harrington, a Gulf War resister, among others.

Kurt Vonnegut read the words of Mark Twain at the event celebrating the work of Zinn, a fellow World War II veteran. Vonnegut read from Twain, who spoke out after President Theodore Roosevelt congratulated a general involved in the 1906 Moro Crater massacre in the Philippines.

"It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make these people free and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way; and so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land," Vonnegut quoted Twain during the reading. [32]

In 2004, Zinn published Voices of A People's History of the United States with Anthony Arnove. Voices expands on the concept and provides a large collection of dissident voices in long form. The book is intended as a companion to A People's History and parallels its structure.

Zinn was a consultant to the six-part documentary A People's History of the United States,[33] a television series produced by Alvin H. Perlmutter. According to the documentary's website, the series is expected to be broadcast in 2007.

After years of requests from parents and teachers for a younger readers' version of A People's History, in July 2007 Seven Stories Press has published A Young People's History of the United States, a two-volume, illustrated adaptation of the original text for young adult readers (ages 10–14), updated through the end of 2006.

Awards, references in pop culture and other accomplishments

  • On October 5, 2006, Howard Zinn received the Haven's Center Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship in Madison, Wisconsin.[35]
  • Zinn's autobiography is You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. A biographical documentary film called Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004) was shown in select theaters. The film, on DVD, by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller[36] contains music composed by Richard Martinez[8] and features music by Billy Bragg, Woodie Guthrie, and Pearl Jam. The film includes footage of Howard and Roslyn Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Marian Wright Edelman, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Hayden and Alice Walker. The 78-minute film on DVD includes these special features: On Human Nature and Aggression; Zinn's speech at Veterans for Peace Conference, 2004; and audio of his 1971 speech at the Boston Common on Civil Disobedience. In the film, Noam Chomsky says Zinn "changed the consciousness of a generation."
  • The film was narrated by actor Matt Damon who lived next door to the Zinns as a child in West Newton, Massachusetts. Damon included a reference to A People's History in his film Good Will Hunting. In a confrontation with his psychologist, played by Robin Williams, Damon's character tells him: "If you want to read a real history book, read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. That book will knock you on your ass." Damon also read the latter half of People's History for an audiobook released February 1, 2003 (ISBN 0-06-053006-5). People's History was referenced in a Columbus Day episode of the TV show The Sopranos.
  • Zinn is a featured interview in the documentary Sacco and Vanzetti, which was shown in theaters in the U.S. in 2007.
  • Zinn is a member of the Disarm Education Fund.[37]
  • In October 2005, Chicago's indie punk label Thick Records released a CD called You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship by Springfield-based indie rock band, Resident Genius, featuring excerpts from several Zinn talks. The six Zinn excerpts are "a greatest hits of his speeches recorded over the last 15 years by Roger Leisner of Radio Free Maine. They touch on his 'usual' topics of engaged activism, history from below, war, the media and much more."[38]
  • Zinn's You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train is mentioned in System of a Down's song, "Deer Dance". The line "You can't be neutral on a moving train" is the basis for the Pearl Jam B-Side "Down".
  • The Pearl Jam song "Down" from the album Lost Dogs was inspired by the band's friendship with Zinn.

Theatrical works

Zinn has written three plays: Daughter of Venus (1985), Emma (1976), and Marx in Soho[9] (1999), a one-man play on the life of Karl Marx. It has been frequently produced.

In January 2009, the Boston Playwrights' Theater's[10] production of Daughter of Venus was reviewed by the Boston Globe.[11] According to the review, the central concerns of Daughter of Venus are "personal and social ethics; the balance of obligations to ourselves, our families, and our fellow citizens; the uses and abuses of political and scientific power. Sometimes the choices we make (or don’t make) have vast repercussions on our world and the people we love." Zinn said, "I wrote the play Daughter of Venus in 1985 in the midst of the Cold War, and I wanted to use a family drama to say something about the arms race."[40]

Emma is based on the life of the early 20th century anarchist Emma Goldman. Goldman, an anarchist, feminist, and free-spirited thinker was exiled from the United States because of her viewpoints, including her staunch opposition to World War I. Zinn writes in the Introduction, Emma Goldman "seemed to be tireless as she traveled the country, lecturing to large audiences everywhere, on birth control (‘A woman should decide for herself’), on the falsity of marriage as an institution (‘Marriage has nothing to do with love’), on patriotism (‘the last refuge of a scoundrel’) on free love (‘What is love if not free?’), and also on drama, including Shaw, Ibsen, and Strindberg'."

Books

Forewords and introductions by Howard Zinn

Op-Ed Pieces

Compact discs

  • A People's History of the United States (1999).
  • Artists in the Time of War (2002).
  • Heroes & Martyrs: Emma Goldman, Sacco & Vanzetti, and the Revolutionary Struggle (2000)
  • Stories Hollywood Never Tells (2000).
  • You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship - split CD featuring Zinn talks and noted indie rock band Resident genius (Thick Records) (2005).

Zinn is currently on the Alternative Tentacles record label run by former Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra. Alternative Tentacles sells all forms of Zinn media, including books, films, and compact discs, and stocks hard-to-find Zinn material.

Biographies and profiles

References

  1. ^ NY Times Bestseller list
  2. ^ You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times (1994)ISBN 0-8070-7127-7
  3. ^ howardzinn.org announcement and democracynow.org May 20, 2008 newscast by Amy Goodman
  4. ^ Biography of Howard Zinn
  5. ^ HOWARD ZINN- One Step Ahead of the Landlord.
  6. ^ Appel, Jacob M. Chronicing Lives From Spelman College to B.U. Education Update, April 2004.
  7. ^ Biography of August Meier
  8. ^ Organization of American Historians. Obituary of August Meier, May 2003 by John Bracey University of Massachusetts, Amherst[1].
  9. ^ Edelman, Marian Wright. "Spelman College: A Safe Haven for A Young Black Woman." The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, no. 27 (2000): 118-123.
  10. ^ Interview with Zinn
  11. ^ Zinn interview
  12. ^ Media Filter article on Zinn
  13. ^ Zinn biography
  14. ^ Intervew with Zinn
  15. ^ Exodus News article on Zinn
  16. ^ Tomgram: Graduation Day with Howard Zinn
  17. ^ film clip of Zinn
  18. ^ Zinn, Howard (1990). Declarations of Independence. New York, NY: HarperPerennial. ISBN 0060921080. 
  19. ^ Interview with Zinn
  20. ^ Interview with Zinn.
  21. ^ Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam 1963-1975. Horizon Book Promotions. 1989. ISBN 0-385-17547-7. 
  22. ^ [Ellsberg autobiography, Zinn autobiography]
  23. ^ a b Blanton, Tom (2006-05-21). ""The lie behind the secrets"". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-op-blanton21may21,0,1992884.story. Retrieved on 2008-01-21. 
  24. ^ Winter Soldier Investigation. 1971. 
  25. ^ http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/unfinished.pdf
  26. ^ Interview with Zinn.
  27. ^ "Terrorism Over Tripoli" from Zinn Reader, Seven Stories Press (1993) excerpted online
  28. ^ Yale Daily News - Zinn calls for activism
  29. ^ American Historical Association Blog: Iraq War Resolution is Ratified by AHA Members
  30. ^ Historian Howard Zinn Calls for Activism - CommonDreams.org
  31. ^ "Backlist to the Future" by Rachel Donadio, July 30, 2006
  32. ^ Truthdig - Reports - Patriot’s Day: Stop the Violence
  33. ^ Zinn's website.
  34. ^ Prix des Amis du Monde diplomatique 2003 - Les Amis du Monde diplomatique
  35. ^ Zinn to receive Havens Center award (Oct. 4, 2006)
  36. ^ [2][dead link]
  37. ^ Disarm.org website.
  38. ^ You Can't Blow Up A Social Relationship :: AK Press.
  39. ^ Zinn Will Vote For Nader, Dandelion Salad, October 29, 2008. [3].
  40. ^ - 2009-01-30.
  41. ^ [4].

External links


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Who2 Biography. Copyright © 1998-2008 by Who2, LLC. All rights reserved. See the Howard Zinn biography from Who2.  Read more
Artist. Copyright © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Quotes By. Copyright © 2008 QuotationsBook.com. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Howard Zinn" Read more

 

Mentioned in