Martin Duberman: Howard Zinn’s Life and Legacy

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Dandelion Salad

lauraflanders·Jan 28, 2013

Martin Duberman, the author of the biography of Howard Zinn, “A Life on the Left,” explores the historian’s powerful legacy.

Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress by Howard Zinn (repost)

Image by Whiskeygonebad via Flickr

It’s that time of the year again. In case you missed reading this, here it is again.

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
October 12, 2009

An excerpt from A People’s History of the United States.

Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

Howard Zinn: Be Honest About the History of Our Country

with Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
August 24, 2012

“But remember, this power of the people on top depends on the obedience of the people below. When people stop obeying, they have no power.” — Howard Zinn

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Aug 24, 2012 by democracynow

DemocracyNow.org – The late historian, writer and activist Howard Zinn would have turned 90 years old today. Zinn died of a heart attack at the age of 87 on January 27, 2010. After serving as a bombardier in World War II, Zinn went on to become a lifelong dissident and peace activist. He was active in the civil rights movement and many of the struggles for social justice over the past 50 years. In 1980, Howard Zinn published his classic book, “A People’s History of the United States,” which would go on to sell more than a million copies and change the way we look at history in America. We air an excerpt of a Zinn interview on Democracy Now! from May 2009, and another from one of his last speeches later that year, just two months before his death.

Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004; must-see; repost)

In case you missed this, or would like to watch it again.

with Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
June 10, 2012

Howard ‘n Roslyn Zinn at BU (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Documentary in which professor Howard Zinn recounts his life as a writer, educator, and leader in nonviolent social protest. His story is one of being in “the right place at the right time,” from poor beginnings, working in shipyard unions, fighting in WWII as a bomber pilot, and then launching his academic career as one of the first white professors to teach at the historically black Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia.

Anthony Arnove and Noam Chomsky Honor Howard Zinn + Q&A

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

In honor of Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Dec. 8, 2011

“But remember, this power of the people on top depends on the obedience of the people below. When people stop obeying, they have no power.” — Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn on “War and Social Justice” (2009) (repost)

Reblogging this in case you missed it.

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Nov. 20, 2011

Democracy Now!
Jan 2, 2009

Image by AndyRobertsPhotos via Flickr

Howard Zinn is one of this country’s most celebrated historians. His classic work A People’s History of the United States changed the way we look at history in America. First published a quarter of a century ago, the book has sold over a million copies and is a phenomenon in the world of publishing—selling more copies each successive year.

A Veteran Remembers By Howard Zinn (2006)

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Nov. 11, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Let’s go back to the beginning of Veterans Day. It used to be Armistice Day, because at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, World War I came to an end.

We must not forget that conflict. It revealed the essence of war, of all wars, because however “just” or “humanitarian” may be the claims, at the irreducible core of all war is the slaughter of the innocent, organized by national leaders, accompanied by lies.

Columbus, the Indians, & Human Progress by Howard Zinn (repost)

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

It’s that time of the year again. In case you missed reading this, here it is again.

Image by Whiskeygonebad via Flickr

by Howard Zinn Featured Writer Dandelion Salad October 12, 2009 An excerpt from A People’s History of the United States. Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. … Read More

The Intimately Oppressed by Howard Zinn

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at www.greanvillepost.com, July 20, 2011
August 12, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Chapter 6 from A People’s History of the United States.

It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.

In this invisibility they were something like black slaves (and thus slave women faced a double oppression). The biological uniqueness of women, like skin color and facial characteristics for Negroes, became a basis for treating them as inferiors. True, with women, there was something more practically important in their biology than skin color-their position as childbearers-but this was not enough to account for the general push backward for all of them in society, even those who did not bear children, or those too young or too old for that.

A Leftist Guide to the Fourth of July by Billy Wharton

by Billy Wharton
Guest Writer
Dandelion Salad
Examiner.com
July 4, 2011

Image by stewartmorris via Flickr

A neighbor illustrated the problem with the Fourth of July.  He broke out a new bumper sticker for his car just in time for the annual celebration.  The sticker promoted the US Navy with the slogan, “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of all those who oppose us.”  This twisted take on the spirit of the day is a perfect illustration of the worst American chauvinism that often pushes leftists and other progressives away from the holiday.  However, as historians such as Howard Zinn have demonstrated, there are alternatives – there is a counter-narrative to American history that represents ordinary people.  The Fourth of July is the perfect opportunity to discover it.

A People’s History of The US by Howard Zinn

Image via Wikipedia

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
May 19, 2011

5544andrew
June 05, 2008

Read by Matt Damon and Howard Zinn

Part 1:

Drawing the color line by Howard Zinn

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at www.greanvillepost.com
March 21, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Chapter 2 from A People’s History of the United States.

A black American writer, J. Saunders Redding, describes the arrival of a ship in North America in the year 1619:

Sails furled, flag drooping at her rounded stern, she rode the tide in from the sea. She was a strange ship, indeed, by all accounts, a frightening ship, a ship of mystery. Whether she was trader, privateer, or man-of-war no one knows. Through her bulwarks black-mouthed cannon yawned. The flag she flew was Dutch; her crew a motley. Her port of call, an English settlement, Jamestown, in the colony of Virginia. She came, she traded, and shortly afterwards was gone. Probably no ship in modern history has carried a more portentous freight. Her cargo? Twenty slaves.

Robber Barons, Revolution, and Social Control, Part 1 by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
March 12, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

The Century of Social Engineering, Part 1

In Part 1 of this series, “The Century of Social Engineering,” I briefly document the economic, political and social background to the 20th century in America, by taking a brief look at the major social upheavals of the 19th century. For an excellent and detailed examination of this history, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States  (which provided much of the research for this article) is perhaps the most expansive and detailed examination. I am not attempting to serve it justice here, as there is much left out of this historically examination than there is included.

Howard Zinn: Myths of the Good Wars (Three ‘Holy’ Wars) (must-see) (repost)

Repost in case you missed this or would like to view it again.  We’re thinking of you, Howard Zinn.

by Howard Zinn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Jan. 28, 2011

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

PHubb
September 15, 2009

Historian, Author, Playwright: Howard Zinn Sponsored by Cape Codders for Peace and Justice Filmed by Paul Hubbard at the Wellfleet Public Library on 9-13-09.

The Bomb: Daniel Ellsberg

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

http://fora.tv/

Daniel Ellsberg, the man responsible for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971, imagines how nuclear weapons would be viewed today if Germany had used them in World War II. Because they would not have changed the outcome of the war, Ellsberg claims they would be branded “criminal, murderous” tools of Nazi desperation.