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"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
Giving some spotlight to little known heros.
| Customer Rating:   | | The book is a marvelous work! The best aspect IMO is the effort Zinn made to praise some little known heros of the civil rights movement and other social justice movements. We all know the big names: Malcolm X, MLK, Etc. But Zinn summarized the lives and actions of some other less influential, but just as passionate characters such as Eugene Debbs, Emma Goldman, and countless anti-war activist. The reason I chipped off a star is the tendency of the book to be an anti-war cry rather than an advocation and commemoration of social justice movements which, I thought was the book's central aim. His points on war were very well taken but I would have liked to see him go into other aspects of social justice. With that being said, war, by far, is the dominant issue of the book. Zinn delivers another very powerful work and as always a source of inspiration for the current and future generations of activist, scholars, and humanitarians. |
Can't Believe in Him Anymore
| Customer Rating: | After reading that Howard Zinn does not think it is important to investigate 9/11, I will have nothing more to do with him. I don't care how renowned he is. If he doesn't think it's important to stop the false flag operations that have gone on for many, many decades that have thrust us into wars that were instigated by interested 3rd party investors to cash in on the vast fortunes made when they finance both sides of a war, then he will get no support from me. Wake up people! Aren't you tired of being played like a puppet on a string. Watch "JFKII: The Bush Connection" and "Empire of the City: Ring of Power" on YouTube.
http://freedocumentaries.org/ |
Powerful prose dotted with history lessons
| Customer Rating: | Once again I am enthralled by Zinn's masterful writing, collected here in 271 pages of prose that will keep you glued!
Peppered with bits of history as made by ordinary people, each chapter of this book contains a short essay by Howard Zinn dealing with topics of social injustices such as war, capital punishment, and violence of capitalism and the active reactions by ordinary people to bring attention to the problem and to drive change at the grass-root level from the founding of America to present day.
EXCERPT:
"Our culture--the media, the educational system-- tries to crowd out of our political consciousness everything except who will be elected president and who will be on the Supreme Court, as if these are the most important decisions we make. They are not. They deflect us from the most important job citizens have, which is to energize democracy by organizing, protesting, sharing information, and engaging in acts of civil disobedience that shake up the system."
The theme is the same: Many, many everyday people, whom abused in some way (or seeing the abuse) by the artificial entity that is government and its many bureaucratic arms of privilege/commerce/imperial-driven warfare against the majority class of the subjugated, the poor and those simply born of a different nationality, race or sex; yet are not afraid to face down the police, the military, the farcical legal system or neighbors blinded by patriotic fervor to bring justice to those unrepresented by the 'system' or the media. |
Misguided Power
| Customer Rating: | Zinn accurately points out that a disgruntled citizenry can overpower the guns and force of the largest governments. He correctly identifies problems with our current system of government; however his solutions are misguided at best.
He puts too much faith in the ability of government to fix problems and actually calls for more government intervention - apparently oblivious to the fact that government almost always exasperates the very problems it attempts to solve.
He riles against government subsidies to large corporations yet lauds government subsidies to "the disadvantaged". He is vehemently opposes a society segregated by class and in the same breath extols a welfare system that reinforces such segregation. He mocks the idea of a free market while never admitting that no such market has ever existed in this country due to government intervention.
As a historian, it should be obvious to Zinn that his utopian socialist society, while arguably pretty on paper, is disastrous in the real world. His solutions are not new and are based on ideals that have proven to be inefficient, if not tantamount to slavery.
A real solution to the issues he brings up is one that has not been tried and failed but one that is based on principal; one that completely opposes the initiation of force against everyone in society; one that reserves and restricts government power to defending the sovereignty of the nation and protecting it's citizen's inalienable freedoms.
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Master Teacher Zinn
| Customer Rating: | Ther are very few writters such as Teacher Zinn that can prose reality such as he does. Giving readers the truth is one thing, delivering it with such clarity is truley enlightening to say the least.
This text should be available, along with Howard Zinn's other works for every American school child in the middle and high school curriculum.
The truth will empower them and just maybe set us all free.
As "Flava Flave" of Public Enemy would declare, "do you know what time it is, boyee!" After reading Zinn's "A Power," you will! |
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