The Zinn Reader (85 page)

Also by Howard Zinn:

LaGuardia in Congress
(Cornell University Press, 1959)

The Southern Mystique
(Alfred Knopf, 1964)

SNCC: The New Abolitionists
(Beacon Press, 1964)

New Deal Thought,
ed. (Bobbs Merrill, 1965)

Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal
(Beacon Press, 1967)

Disobedience and Democracy
(Random House, 1968)

The Politics of History
(Beacon Press, 1970)

The Pentagon Papers: Critical Essays,
ed. with Noam Chomsky (Beacon Press, 1972)

Postwar America
(Bobbs Merrill, 1973)

Justice in Everyday Life,
ed. (William Morrow, 1974)

A People's History of the United States
(Harper & Row, 1980)

The Twentieth Century: A Peoples History
(HarperCollins, 1984)

Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology
(HarperCollins, 1990)

Failure to Quit: Reflections of an Optimistic Historian
(Common Courage Press, 1993)

You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
(Beacon Press, 1994)

HOWARD ZINN grew up in the immigrant slums of Brooklyn where he worked in shipyards in his late teens. He saw combat duty as an air force bombardier in World War II, and afterward received his doctorate in history from Columbia University and was a postdoctoral Fellow in East Asian Studies at Harvard University. His first book,
La Guardia in Congress,
was an Albert Beveridge Prize winner. In 1956, he moved with his wife and children to Atlanta to become chairman of the history department of Spelman College. His experiences there led to his second book,
The Southern Mystique.
As a participant-observer in the founding activities of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he spent time in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, and wrote
SNCC: The New Abolitionists.
As part of the American Heritage series, he edited
New Deal Thought,
an anthology. His fifth and six books,
Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal,
and
Disobedience and Democracy,
were written in the midst of his participation in intense antiwar activity. In 1968, he flew to Hanoi with Father Daniel Berrigan to receive the first three American fliers released by North Vietnam. Two years later came
The Politics of History.
In 1972 he edited, with Noam Chomsky,
The Pentagon Papers: Critical Essays.
In 1973 appeared
Postwar America.
In 1974 he edited
Justice in Everyday Life.
In 1980 came his epic masterpiece,
A People's History of the United States,
"a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited politically and economically and whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories"
(Library Journal).
Recent books by Zinn include
Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology
and
You Can't Be
Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times.
Professor emeritus of political science at Boston University, Zinn has also written three plays,
Emma, Daughter of Venus,
and
Marx in Soho.
He lives with his wife Roslyn in the Boston area, near their children and grandchildren.