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American historian and professor
Howard Zinn grew up in a poor immigrant family in Brooklyn and worked in a shipyard as a young man. In World War II he flew as a bombardier in Europe, and his part in bombing raids late in the war later turned him against war. He studied on the GI Bill and earned a PhD in history at Columbia University.
He chaired the history department at Spelman College, a college for Black women in Atlanta, and joined the civil rights movement. Spelman fired him in 1963 for backing student protests. He then taught political science at Boston University until 1988 and became a leading voice against the Vietnam War.
A People's History of the United States (1980) retells American history through the eyes of enslaved people, Native Americans, workers, women and dissenters instead of presidents and generals. It has sold millions of copies and is widely used in classrooms. Many historians, including some on the left, call it one-sided and selective with evidence. He died in 2010, aged 87.
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn retells American history from Columbus to the present through the eyes of Native Americans, enslaved people, workers, women and protesters. A best-selling, much debated alternative to the standard textbook.
New books, occasionally
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