Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left By Martin Duberman

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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 Howard Zinn A Life on the LeftMartin Bauml Duberman is a scholar and playwright He graduated from Yale in 1952 and earned a Ph. Biographies Memoirs Howard zinnia D in American history from Harvard in 1957 Duberman left his tenured position at Princeton University in 1971 to become Distinguished Professor of History at Lehman College in New York City. Howard zinn's history book Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left I plucked this book immediately off the shelf at my local branch of the Brooklyn Public Library when I saw the name Howard Zinn on the cover I m glad I did The name of Howard Zinn is one known exceedingly well and respected every bit as much by anyone who s been fortunate enough to read his magnum opus.

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Their impact and their limitations. Howard zinn written works As a WWII pilot Zinn dropped bombs that killed civilians and did nothing for the anti fascist cause Later as a civil rights activist he saw people murdered by the federal government s inaction when it should have been enforcing their constitutionally guaranteed rights He noted the 1961 prosecution of victims of police abuse in voter registration drives while US soldiers were dying for democracy in Vietnam These events occurred under presidents who were liberal than their electoral opponents These experiences left an impression on him as a relatively young man and informed his views of the relationship of the government and to its people. Howard zinn book Duberman shows how in both Zinn s teaching positions Spelman College and Boston University he is a bad fit with the respective administrations Zinn s activism in Atlanta and elsewhere in the south is widely known.

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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 A People s History of the United States It may have been a happy coincidence that the work I d just previously read and reviewed was Franz Kafka s The Castle This because Martin Duberman s meticulous description of Howard Zinn s experience with certain administrative authorities during his tenure at Spelman College in Atlanta and again at Boston University is quite possibly the best real life illustration of what Kafka fictitiously portrayed in his novel Is there one thing my reading of Howard Zinn a Life on the Left has further reinforced in my understanding of human nature Yes that the question of nature versus nurture will probably never be resolved Howard Zinn s quest and zest for life were a function of both He was born into poverty and consequently dedicated his life to the downtrodden At the same time he had the genes to rise mountains above most of his contemporaries and to become a beacon to us all even decades after his death This world would be a much better place if people like Howard Zinn and recently Albert Gore and Bernie Sanders were allowed to give it direction Instead we settle for mediocrity perhaps because mediocrity is what we know and feel most comfortable with Martin Duberman talks at length about A People s History of the United States as well he should But if there s one paragraph in the book that perhaps best summarizes his respect for the work it may well be this one on p 235 d espite its mix of strengths and shortcomings overall A People s History has marked and encouraged a profound shift away from the tone of triumphalism that before 1980 was the defining feature of most full scale works on U S history By gathering up much of the inaccessible scholarship produced by the new generation of radical historians in the 1960s and 1970s Howard produced an alternative version of our past that proved an impressive counterweight to the downpour of patriotic misinformation that had dominated people s understanding and still afflicts it through the media And what does Duberman have to say about Howard Zinn the man Perhaps these two excerpts from his Coda beginning on p 315 will serve to illustrate his characterization of Zinn Howard had been a person of considerable modesty neither devious nor manipulative an innocent in the sense of always thinking the best of people He had scant drive for personal power and few if any self serving motives behind the political stances he took Never self centered he could be which is quite different self absorbed so involved say in a given public issue or event that he tuned out those around him especially their needs But he was basically kind and generous in person deeply engaging interested in persuasion than in confrontation though with the Silbers N B John Silber President of Boston University of the world quite capable of determined resistance When an interviewer asked Daniel Ellsberg who his own heroes were he had no hesitation in answering First Howard Zinn Noam Chomsky sounded a similar note He was devoted selflessly to the empowerment of those who had little As a teacher Howard was all but unanimously beloved and revered by his students even as a person by some of the conservative detractors who would unexpectedly appear in his classes He cared about them and they knew it And for the second excerpt on p 318 we have this in the final two sentences of the book w hat will most certainly come down to future generations is Howard s humanity his exemplary concern for the plight of others a concern free of condescension or self importance Howard always stayed in character and that character remained centered on a capacious solidarity with the least fortunate If as I did you have a deep appreciation of Howard Zinn s work on A People s History of the United States perhaps Martin Duberman s Howard Zinn A Life on the Left belongs on that same high shelf as a companion text. Debunking howard zinn book summary RRB09 07 2016Brooklyn NY 400 Howard Zinn is much better portrayed in my opinion by Howard Zinn himself That being said this book is very honest in its approach and evidence towards the man it details It has a good mix of historical context and Howard s reaction to these events It relies on a large foundation of research and materials And even though Howard worked hard to keep his family life private the book does what it can to expound on the life he lived outside of political involvement All around a great read with some notable and poignant lines 400 More a history book than a personal account of Howard Zinn s life 400 For such a public figure Zinn went to great lengths to protect his private life including destroying personal correspondence and documents The author delves sensitively into family history and offers a rich detailed presentation of Zinn s involvement in the civil rights movement the impact he s had on contemporary activism and his long career as a scholar and academic 400 Truly wonderful book about the historian Howard Zinn Duberman writes with flair and accuracy in describing a man with faults who has so much hope for us Zinn works his whole life for the people in his writings his protests his thoughts his actions and in the end his best is beyond what many could ever hoped for I ve been reading Howard Zinn for years and still learned some new things about him in this biography and that is all one could hope for in a book Read this book if you re a Zinn fan or just curious and you won t be disappointed 400 Howard Zinn A Life on the Left reads like an hagiography than an actual biography There was much to admire about Howard Zinn and his work but Duberman s adulatory writing is overbearing 400 Some favorites p7 Thomas Jefferson High School wasn t much of an experience for me educationally. Howard zinn on democratic education p9 After participating in a nonviolent protest in 1939 regarding the gap between poverty and wealth in the US I was no longer a liberal a believer in the self correcting character of American democracy I was a radical believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country something rotten at the root. Howard zinn's history book p39 40 At Spelman 1961 Howard and Roz enter Rich s Department Store buy coffee and sandwiches sit at a table are joined by two black students By fall 1961 Rich s ended its policy of segregation. Howard zinn books list p148 Mixing in humor to leaven his moral intensity President McKinley waited for the word of God to enter the Philippines now we are waiting for the word of God to get out This can be very worrisome what with the present talk about God being dead. Kindle Howard zinnie's optical p164 Our silence in the face of war racism and other social evils is not freedom for us it is freedom for the political leaders of the country to have their way and count on our inaction Silence is political. Howard zinn written works 165 170 re writing historyp173 If we want peace we will have to struggle for it IF we want justice we will have to demand it If we want democracy we will have to build it. Howard zinn a people's history p176 In 1969 upon learning of Daniel Ellsberg s defection to the anti war ranks The gross evil of our time is not the direct product of a few bad men it comes off a very long very complex assembly line in which all of us are given little jobs to do. Howard Zinn Biographies memoirs quiz p297 298 opposition to war on Iraq 2002p309 The People Speak documentary 2008 DVD 2010 400 Duberman iconic gay historian writes a biography of Howard Zinn iconic radical historian and educator This book should be five stars but it is what it is as they say Personally I was fascinated by Zinn s early career in Atlanta at Spelman College in the 1960s Zinn s activism in Georgia made an interesting comparison to Albert Foley s at Spring Hill College in Mobile where Foley was arguably the most visible white proponent of desegregation and chair of the Alabama Advisory Committee to the United States Civil Rights Commission Whereas Zinn was perceived as radical his entire life Foley was a moderate who became conservative as he aged Zinn always managed to shake things up in a good way. Howard zinn history textbook I ve never read any of Zinn s books but I think Duberman was trying to match his narrative style to Zinn s famous People s History of the United States I was disappointed and found the book difficult to finish I ve read several of Duberman s other books that I didn t have to slog through 400 I am giving this book 5 stars although I am not sure I will reread it my usual criteria However it was a thoroughly engaging read by a gifted historian Duberman was somewhat limited in writing this biography as Zinn was careful to conceal personal details of his life and even destroyed records of such Zinn s deep love for humanity shines through the pages The book is being heavy on the details of the events of the day at each stage of Zinn s life but this was a plus Duberman captures the essence of very complex times the struggles within the Civil Rights movement between SNCC and the old vanguard the invasion of Iraq the ruthlessness of John Silber the reactionary and corrupt president of Boston University etc He details Zinn s writings and Zinn s process in detail such as how The People s History came to be written and became an international phenomenon Duberman does not hedge his critiques of Zinn s writing and the inconsistencies in Zinn s thought I felt he was very even handed and responsible in this respect The sections of the book on the Civil Rights movement were perhaps the most moving Duberman distills the complexity of the long US involvement in Vietnam and Southeast Asia in a way that made so many pieces of the puzzle of that time fall into place for me He made me proud that I have consistently refused to donate 1 cent to Boston University where I earned a Masters and Doctorate because of my opposition to Silber Now thanks to this book I have further facts of the financial shenanigans Silber got up to while there and justify never donating after seeing how much the university squandered on Silber and how little they paid faculty and staff for many years I never got a cent of scholarship money from them even in their program for supervising teachers of their students I will continue to give to my undergraduate institution Carnegie Mellon which was generous to me and provided me an above average but not brilliant student with a stellar education This book is than a biography It is the portrayal of the era that Howard Zinn exemplified He was a staunch leftist but never a follower of any specific party or group He was consistent to the end of his life in his beliefs Duberman points out that Zinn often did not have answers or solutions He was also shortsighted in his failure to see beyond the politics of Black and White and labor Zinn only briefly mentioned the Gay movement in later revisions of A People s History and failed to recognize the various feminist movements except in passing He never seemed to get beyond Black and White racial issues never broadening to Latino Native American Asian American and Zinn was imperfect but Duberman shows us that he was one heck of a human being 400 I have not read The People s History nor followed Howard Zinn s career but have been curious about him Biographer Martin Duberman covers Zinn s political activity his writing and his professorial career He is gives perspective on his writings but he also took stands on many not many campus issues Spelman s President Albert Manley was acculturated to walking the fine line and the policies he upheld were those designed to prepare students for of the same He was not interested in making changes In the clash Zinn lost his job At Boston University its famous authoritarian President John Silber and its most famous radical professor sparred over free speech and labor issues John Silber s heavy handed and self dealing record is best shown on pp 264 265 where Zinn s New York Times article rebuts Silber s attacks on Zinn Notably Silber s attacks continue after Zinn s retirement. Howard zinn quotes The strength of this biography besides the assembly of a timeline of Zinn s life is the informed interpretation of his works Duberman shows the impact of the People s History as changing the way we look at history He also shows its weakness as the slight attention he gave to women and gays which is a major hole in works about the people. Howard zinn book The book needs on Zinn s personal life While Zinn burned his personal records there are living sources For instance the notes refer to interviews with his brothers but there is nothing of their adult life or how they felt about the issues supported by their famous brother Did Zinn go to Spelman to be involved in the civil rights movement or did activism stem from his experiences there Why such extensive correspondence with Frances Fox Piven Was she the woman Zinn spoke to his daughter about The narrative is reader friendly This book recommended for those interested in Howard Zinn 400.

. Howard zinn book pdf p22 It dawned on him that perhaps professional historical writing wasn t as objective as he d been led to believe. Howard zinn on democratic education p39 Marian Wright Edelman was photographed sitting calmly in a cell reading C. Peoples history of the u.s. by howard zinn p56 Bernice Johnson Reagon in a leadership role as a student at Spelman, Howard zinn a people's history p105 description of Freedom Summer 1964 and Freedom School radical pedagogy via Paolo Freire Myles Horton of the Highlander school in Tennessee: Howard zinn's history book p140 Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas booklet Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience Howard Zinn s response Disobedience and Democracy, Biographies Memoirs Howard zinni p160 Let the economists work out a plan for free food instead of advising the Federal Reserve Board on interest rates. Howard zinn mises p204 Howard advised that we shed some traditional mythology namely that those in power deserve to be there: Howard zinn's history book p244 CISPES involvementp280 Not to believe in the possibility of dramatic change is to forget that things have changed not enough of course but .S Lewis s The Screwtape Letters p39 Jane Stembridge mentioned