A Power Governments Cannot Suppress | Howard Zinn

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress | Howard Zinn | Master Teacher Zinn

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A Power Government...

	A Power Governments Cannot Suppress Howard Zinn City Lights Publishers, 2006 - 308 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"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

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a fantastic "must" read!

howard zinn is a true hero in our age of myopia and deceit. this book is filled with invaluable information. read it! keep it! pass it on! with all the information zinn places in your hands, it's amazing that he still leaves you with a positive message which one cannot ignore!

Master Teacher Zinn

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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Powerful prose dotted with history lessons

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.

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a powerful message

this book was very informative, for me at least, a student of math.

however, as i think someone already mentioned, the prose is often lame and unimaginative.

examples:
"we are always in need of radicals who are also lovable, and so we would do well to remember eugene v. debs." - p. 231

"the world has been at war, again and again all through the twentieth century, and here it is, a new century, and we still have not done away with the horror of war." - p. 189

but this is really not important; what's important is zinn's overall message, encapsulated in the book's title. in fact one could argue that the dull prose makes it more accessible to laypeople (who are the backbone of social change, as zinn emphasizes time and time again) and easier to read.

and though there's a bibliography, there is no footnoting, as opposed to chomsky's books, which all seem to be extensively footnoted. i found this lack of rigour annoying and slightly unprofessional.

these are minor complaints. ultimately i give this book my highest recommendations. i'm a much better person for having read it, and it's a great book to awaken any american to the realities of the world he/she lives in.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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