Reading A to Z: Z is for Zinn

I once saw Howard Zinn in person. I was in Boston, sitting up in the balcony during an Eddie Vedder solo concert. He started talking about how Zinn was a good friend of his and very influential in his life. He then pointed him out to the crowd. Zinn was directly in my line of sight, but sitting in the second row on the floor.

A few months later, I received an email from a site where I was doing book reviews, offering up one of Howard Zinn's books for review. There was also the opportunity to set up an interview with the man. I was ecstatic. I was chosen to receive the book and started thinking of how I would start my conversation with the man. I felt several steps closer to my favorite singer. Two weeks after I received my copy in the mail, Howard Zinn died.

I was crushed.


I have paged through portions of it. Howard Zinn rightly believed that the youth of today were being given only a portion of the real stories of historical events, such as oppression. He spent a lot of time writing full histories, to better educate Americans. His book A People's History of the United States was being rereleased and used on blog tours in honor of the documentary The People Speak being released in 2010. Zinn died in January before he could see the public reaction to his most current work.