Product Description

"Thank you, Howard Zinn. Thank you for telling us what none of our leaders are willing to: The truth. And you tell it with such brilliance, such humanity. It is a personal honor to be able to say I am a better citizen because of you."
-- Michael Moore, director of the film Fahrenheit 9/11, and author of the New York Times bestseller, Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!

"This strong, incisive book by Howard Zinn provides us with a penetrating critique of current U.S. policies and embraces the sweep of history. Zinn's inspired voice sets him apart which is why so many of us look to Howard as a modern-day Thoreau. As always with Zinn's work, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress leaves us with the faith that citizens have what it takes to confront power and to reverse the dangerous and unjust acts of our government."
-- Jonathan Kozol, author of The Shame of The Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America

"Find here the voice of the well-educated and honorable and capable and human United States of America, which might have existed if only absolute power had not corrupted its third-rate leaders so absolutely."
-- Kurt Vonnegut, author of A Man Without a Country

"Howard Zinn is a unique voice of sanity, clarity and wisdom who reads history not only to understand the present but to shape the future. Profoundly insightful A Power Governments Cannot Suppress should be read by every American, over and over again."
-- Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun Magazine, author of The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right

"This brilliant new book-like Howard Zinn's presence, and his whole life, is the best possible antidote to political despair. Read it, and rejoin the struggle for a human world and a foreign policy that's good for children."
-Daniel Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and is author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, is a major new collection of essays on American history, class, immigration, justice, and ordinary citizens who have made a difference. Zinn addresses America's current political/ethical crisis using lessons learned from our nation's history. Zinn brings a profoundly human, yet uniquely American perspective to each subject he writes about, whether it's the abolition of war, terrorism, the Founding Fathers, the Holocaust, defending the rights of immigrants, or personal liberties. Written in an accessible, personal tone, Zinn approaches the telling of U.S. history from an active, engaged point of view. "America's future is linked to how we understand our past," writes Zinn; "For this reason, writing about history, for me, is never a neutral act."

Zinn frames the book with an opening essay titled "If History is to be Creative," a reflection on the role and responsibility of the historian. "To think that history-writing must aim simply to recapitulate the failures that dominate the past," writes Zinn, "is to make historians collaborators in an endless cycle of defeat." "If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, and occasionally win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare."

Buzzing with stories and ideas, Zinn draws upon fascinating, little-known historical anecdotes spanning from the Declaration of Independence to the USA PATRIOT Act to comment on the most controversial issues facing us today: government dishonesty, how to respond to terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the loss of our liberties, immigration, and the responsibility of the citizen to confront power for the common good.

Considered a "modern-day Thoreau" by Jonathon Kozol, Zinn's inspired writings address the reader as an active participant in history making. "We live in a beautiful country," writes Zinn, in the book's opening chapter. "But people who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back."

Featuring essays penned over an eight-year period, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is Howard Zinn's first writerly work in several years, an invaluable post-9/11-era addition to the themes that run through his bestselling classic, A People's History Of the United States.

Howard Zinn is a veteran of World War II and author of many books and plays, including the million-selling classic, A People's History of the United States. For more information about Howard and his speaking schedule see www.citylights.com

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38014 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 308 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780872864757
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Prolific author, WWII veteran and outspoken history/political science professor Zinn collects here almost three dozen brief, passionate essays that follow in the tradition of his landmark work, A People's History of the United States, taking up the cause of ordinary Americans fighting for social justice. Shunning conventional notions of American history, Zinn instead strives to decouple the country's history from its "mythology," in part by examining familiar contemporary concerns like class, race, civil liberties, immigration and the Iraq War. Indeed, this veteran's profound disillusionment with war suffuses the work, but a polemic against the Bush administration this is not; while Zinn scarcely shies from critiquing the governing elite, he prefers to focus on little-known or underappreciated historical episodes such as Revolutionary War soldiers driven to mutiny or 1999 World Trade Organization protestors in Seattle. He also revisits and reframes well-known events, including the Boston Massacre and the Holocaust, and invokes figures like union organizer Eugene Debs and Vietnam War protestor Philip Berrigan to point the way forward. Though his observations can be bleak, Zinn's belief that "history is powerful" and will "break down the credibility of the war makers" gives his book a great sense of hope. Readers seeking to break out of their ideological comfort zones will find much to ponder here.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"Strong, incisive ... penetrating ... embraces the sweep of history." -- Jonathan Kozol, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The Shame of The Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America"

About the Author
Howard Zinn served as an air force bombardier in WWII, and afterward received his doctorate in history from Columbia University. He is author of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, and the million-selling classic, A People's History of the United States.

Customer Reviews

Great Companion to A People's History
This book of short essays frees Zinn from the strictures of conventional history writing. Of course, A People's History is anything but conventional in its approach, yet it stills follows a mostly chronological narrative of history. Here, Zinn's tone is much more engaging and personal. He talks about historical figures that inspire him--Eugene V. Debs and Phillip Berrigan, for example--and relates them to struggles going on today. He puts the Iraq War and the war on terror in context with other conflicts in our history, and he discusses his own war experiences in many of the essays. He also makes clear the role that the media and popular culture play in perpetuating myths of American exceptionalism and "good wars." Overall, though, one is inspired by Zinn's optimism and hope for the future, despite everything stacked against us. This is a brisk and compelling read. Zinn is a national treasure.

Thoughtful, entertaining, challanging
Zinn is usually well worth reading. His essays provide short clear opinions incorporating history well. History is not neutral, as he reminds us. Engaging his ideas should help sort out one's own more clearly whether close to his or not. You have to respect someone who is Jewish, a civil rights activist, a Bombardier during the war who has the intestinal fortitude to critique his own roots and experience.

The short essays range from World War II and the Holocaust Memorial to activism. None takes long to read, all are worth thinking about. Zinn remains something of an optimist despite our national malaise and dumbing down of debate today.

It is a pity that this and other valuable books are effectively `censored' out of circulation by the several national book store chains in Malls (Hurray for Amazon!) Thinking and debate suffer accordingly.

His "People's History of the United States" is a classic because of word of mouth reputation and can now be found widely. He edits a series that has been started including "Darker Peoples" focused on recent history of the "third world."

A strident call to action
Written by historian, playwright, and World War II veteran Howard Zinn, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is a scathing attack against America's political and ethical failings, using examples of atrocities America perpetuated in history - from massacres in Vietnam to abuses of Chinese immigrant labor workers to complicity in the genocide of East Timor and much more - to add context to current ills such as the extended toll of the war in Iraq. "There is no certainty as to what would happen in our absence [in Iraq]. But there is absolute certainty about the result of our presence - escalating deaths on all sides." Zinn is firmly anti-death penalty and decries its usage as well. Of especial interest in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is the author's denouncement of a disturbing tendency to compartmentalize the Holocaust, to forget the millions of non-Jews that were executed along with 6 million Jews, and worse, neglect the occurrence of modern acts of genocide thereby betraying the memory of victims of the Holocaust genocide. A strident call to action, speaking out against governmental and human misdeeds, and vociferously encouraging the reader to stand up and take action..