Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn (born December 7, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York) is an influential leftist and historian. Zinn is retired from a professorship at Boston University. He has received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V. Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award, and the Lannan Literary Award. He lives in Auburndale, Massachusetts, U.S.

Zinn was raised in a working-class family in Brooklyn, and flew bombing missions for the United States in World War II, an experience he now points to in shaping his opposition to war. In 1956, he became a professor at Spelman College in Atlanta, a school for black women, where he soon became involved in the Civil rights movement. When he was fired in 1963 for insubordination, he moved to Boston University, where he became a leading critic of the Vietnam War. He is perhaps best known for A People's History of the United States, which presents American history through the eyes of those outside of the political and economic establishment: Native Americans, slaves, women, blacks, Populists, etc. His autobiography is You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train.

A reference to A People's History was made in the movie Good Will Hunting; Matt Damon grew up next door to Zinn.

Published Works

Postwar America: 1945–1971 (with Jack P. Greene, 1973) ISBN 089608678X
  • The Sixties Experience: hard lessons about modern America (with Edward P. Morgan, 1992) ISBN 1566390141
  • From a Native Son: selected essays in indigenism, 1985–1995 (with Ward Churchill, 1996) ISBN 0896085538
  • A People's History of the Supreme Court (with Peter H. Irons, 2000) ISBN 0140292012
  • Silencing Political Dissent: how post-9-11 anti-terrorism measures threaten our civil liberties (with Nancy Chang, Center for Constitutional Rights, 2002) ISBN 1583224947
  • You Back the Attack, We'll Bomb Who We Want (with Micah Ian Wright, 2003) ISBN 1583225846
  • The Forging of the American Empire: from the Revolution to Vietnam, a history of US imperialism (with Sidney Lens, 2003) ISBN 0745321003
  • If You're Not a Terrorist…Then Stop Asking Questions! (with Micah Ian Wright, 2004) ISBN 1583226265
  • External Links