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Overview
Howard Zinn was perhaps the best-known and most widely celebrated popular interpreter of American history in the twentieth century, renowned as a bestselling author, a political activist, a lecturer, and one of America’s most recognizable and admired progressive voices.
His rich, complicated, and fascinating life placed Zinn at the heart of the signal events of modern American history—from the battlefields of World War II to the McCarthy era, the civil rights and the antiwar movements, and beyond. A bombardier who later renounced war, a son of working-class parents who earned a doctorate at Columbia, a white professor who taught at the historically black Spelman College in Atlanta, a committed scholar who will be forever remembered as a devoted “people’s historian”—Howard Zinn blazed a bold, iconoclastic path through the turbulent second half of the twentieth century.
For the millions who were moved by Zinn’s personal example of political engagement and by his inspiring “bottom up” history, here is the first biography of this towering figure—by Martin Duberman, recipient of the American Historical Association’s 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award. Given exclusive access to the previously closed Zinn archives, Duberman’s impeccably researched biography is illustrated with never-before-published photos from the Zinn family collection. Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left is a major publishing event that brings to life one of the most inspiring figures of our time.
Synopsis
Howard Zinn was perhaps the best-known and most widely celebrated popular interpreter of American history in the twentieth century, renowned as a bestselling author, a political activist, a lecturer, and one of America's most recognizable and admired progressive voices.His rich, complicated, and fascinating life placed Zinn at the heart of the signal events of modern American history--from the battlefields of World War II to the McCarthy era, the civil rights and the antiwar movements, and beyond. A bombardier who later renounced war, a son of working-class parents who earned a doctorate at Columbia, a white professor who taught at the historically black Spelman College in Atlanta, a committed scholar who will be forever remembered as a devoted "people's historian"--Howard Zinn blazed a bold, iconoclastic path through the turbulent second half of the twentieth century.
For the millions who were moved by Zinn's personal example of political engagement and by his inspiring "bottom up" history, here is an authoritative biography of this towering figure--by Martin Duberman, recipient of the American Historical Association's 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award. Given exclusive access to the previously closed Zinn archives, Duberman's impeccably researched biography is illustrated with never-before-published photos from the Zinn family collection. Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left is a major publishing event that brings to life one of the most inspiring figures of our time.
Editorials
The Washington Post
Like Zinn, [Duberman] is a strong writer who brings an easy familiarity to his subject, giving ample context for Zinn's activism and ideas, such as nimbly framing debates about historical objectivity and engagement. Nor does he shy away from thorny topics…this intelligent book reminds us of titantic moral struggles in American history and those who engaged in them.—John Tirman
Publishers Weekly
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) was a radical activist, author of the landmark 1980 bestseller A People’s History of the United States, a bottoms-up chronicle of American injustice, racism, and hypocrisy. Admiring but occasionally critical of Zinn, Duberman (A Saving Remnant), CUNY emeritus professor of history, emphasizes that Zinn’s book made no claim to objectivity and “marked a profound shift away from the tone of triumphalism” that characterized earlier histories. Raised in poverty, Zinn served in WWII, earned a Ph.D. at Columbia, and taught at Spelman, a historically black women’s college in Atlanta, from 1956 to 1963, encouraging nascent civil right protests until he was fired for these activities. He moved to Boston University, writing and campaigning until his death. A purely American radical, Zinn had no sympathy with communism or revolution, but often appears cynical, as when he views the Bill of Rights or universal suffrage as mere concessions by the elite to pacify the masses. Duberman’s sympathetic account may lead readers to sympathize with Zinn’s stance that disparaging American freedom for not being expansive enough is preferable to glorifying it uncritically. 24 b&w illus. (Oct.)Library Journal
Duberman (History, emeritus, CUNY Grad. Sch.; A Saving Remnant), acclaimed social and cultural historian, writes here about pioneering historian Zinn (A People's History of the United States), who fused an academic concern about nonelites with six decades of public action in civil rights and antiwar movements. Duberman recounts Zinn's impoverished childhood, distinguished World War II service, education at Columbia University, first professorship at Spellman College (where he rankled its president), and his later position at Boston University, where president John Silber detested him, as Duberman deliciously details. New Zinn admirers may be pleasantly surprised to learn of his early, high-profile commitment to Atlanta's antisegregation efforts and his role in founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Those already familiar with Zinn may find patronizing Duberman's editorializing on Vietnam, on differing approaches to sexual fidelity, and on the history of U.S. capitalism. Serious history students may wish Duberman had devoted more analysis to Zinn's methodology and professional legacy, although what brief attention he pays to those subjects is as deeply nuanced and sophisticated as one would expect from such a world-class historian. VERDICT An illuminating but incomplete intellectual biography, this will interest but frustrate historians and continue to charm the already charmed.—Scott H. Silverman, Richmond, INKirkus Reviews
A star-struck biography of the prominent historian and activist. Howard Zinn (1992–2010) is best known as the author of the controversial A People's History of the United States (1979), written to counteract a perceived bias toward the wealthy and privileged in standard history textbooks by highlighting the contributions of those conventionally omitted. Though as unbalanced in one direction as Zinn felt the standard texts were in another, it has been widely influential in affecting the content of a whole generation of textbooks and course syllabi. Zinn presents a challenge for a biographer. During the 1960s, he worked courageously in the civil rights movement and against the Vietnam War; he was closely associated with such prominent figures as Stokely Carmichael, Tom Hayden and Daniel Ellsberg. His emotional life, however, is inaccessible; Zinn disliked discussing emotions and ruthlessly purged his archives of anything touching on feelings or relationships. Apart from an increasing attraction to anarchism, Zinn's political philosophy never evolved much beyond the conventional socialism he adopted in adolescence. Nor did he move on from the issues of the '60s to newer causes like women's and gay rights or globalization. Throughout a long academic career, he confined himself to discussing racial and labor issues and opposing various American military interventions. Consequently, little remains to a biographer but a succession of demonstrations attended, books and articles written, and feuds with two college presidents. By way of context, prize-winning author Duberman (History Emeritus/CUNY Graduate School; A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, 2011, etc.) includes summaries of contemporaneous American history presented from a tendentious leftist viewpoint. While Duberman may criticize some of Zinn's writing as simplistic, one-sided or impractical, he clearly has no interest in challenging its fundamental political underpinnings. Recommended for readers already smitten with Zinn.From the Publisher
"This intelligent book reminds us of the titanic moral struggles in American history and those who engaged with them."—The Washington Post
"Destined to be a classic."
—Mark Kurlansky
"If you’re a fan of Howard Zinn… you’ll want to pick up this excel-lent biography."
—The Progressive
"A masterful biography… With his typically meticulous research, [Duberman] has ferretted out the facts and given us a complete picture, warts and all."
—Doug Ireland