Howard Zinn Digital Collection

To inspire people to read, write, and make history
This digital collection is a searchable bibliography of materials by and about Howard Zinn, including books, articles, letters, films, audio, and photos from publishers, broadcasters, organizations, archives, libraries, and personal holdings. When possible, we have published the content or an excerpt for research and educational purposes. In most cases, we link out to where you can read, watch, or listen at the respective publisher or archive.

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Talk by Howard Zinn. PM Press. 2011.
Howard Zinn returns to the themes he popularized in his masterful A People’s History of the United States—how we interpret history, and what that tells us about the struggles of the vast majority of folks typically written out of the narrative.
Talk by Howard Zinn. Democracy Now! May 18, 1999.
Howard Zinn looking back at the millennium.
Read by Jeff Zinn. HarperAudio. 2009.
Unabridged reading of A People’s History of the United States.
Talk by Howard Zinn. AK Press, 2001.
Howard Zinn explains with great humor and passion how his teaching, his history, and his activism are parts of the same project.
Read by Matt Damon. HarperAudio. 2004.
elected pieces from A People’s History of the United States from the 20th century.
Read by Jeff Zinn. Audible Studios, 2014.
Read by Jeff Zinn, A Young People’s History of the United States makes Howard Zinn’s classic text accessible to a middle school audience.
Howard Zinn interviewed by Amy Goodman. Democracy Now! December 27, 1999.
"But what the history of this country shows, and especially in this century, is that democracy comes alive when people who see that the formal structure of government doesn’t help them. The formal structure of government does not change the 12-hour day, doesn’t change the conditions of work, doesn’t change the power of the corporations over working people. When people see that that formal structure doesn’t work, then they organize. They go out on strike. They demonstrate."
Talk by Howard Zinn. AK Press. 2002.
Recorded a month after 9/11, America’s finest social historian examines the role, and response, of artists in society, and particularly, during wartime.
Howard Zinn introducing organizer Ella Baker. Southern Conference Education Fund. American Radio Works. April 24, 1968.
On April 24, 1968, Howard Zinn introduced organizer Ella Baker at a dinner honoring her work. Zinn described Baker as "one of the most consequential and yet one of the least honored people in America."
Talk by Howard Zinn. AK Press, 2001.
Focused on the era of the Industrial Revoluation, Howard Zinn focuses on the organizers and agitators in the laboring and immigrant communities including Ben Reitman, Alexander Berkman, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and Emma Goldman.
Talk by Howard Zinn. Democracy Now! June 10, 1997.
HOWARD ZINN: After you lived a little and struggled a little and been involved a little, you learn at some point along the line that that’s not quite democracy. It’s very far, very far from democracy. I remember seeing—that voting is a puny act in a society which is much, much more complex and where power and people have a much more intricate relationship than they could possibly have in a voting booth.
Talk by Howard Zinn. Democracy Now! May 13, 1998.
HOWARD ZINN: Whatever we’re doing, we’re urged to be neutral. And to be neutral in an unneutral world, that is, to be neutral in a world where thing are already happening—that is, children are already going hungry, wars are going on, and terrible things are going on—and you can’t—to be neutral in a world like that is to collaborate with whatevers happening. And we don’t want to—the people we’re honoring here tonight have chosen not to collaborate.
Collection. Alternative Radio. 1960s-2009.
An archive of more than 50 talks and interviews by Howard Zinn at Alternative Radio.
Democracy Now! • October 14, 1996
HOWARD ZINN: That word "disinterested" has been used a lot. And I never believed in doing disinterested history. I didn’t believe it was possible to do disinterested history. History always represents interests of one sort or another. History always has an effect.
Howard Zinn interviewed by Patricia Marx. WNYC Radio. 1960s.
Recorded in the 1960s (estimate 1964-1965 based on transcript), Patricia Marx sits down with historian Howard Zinn to discuss his books, SNCC: The New Abolitionists and The Southern Mystique. Zinn describes his experiences teaching at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1956 to 1963, and his subsequent observations on racial prejudice in the southern United States.
Manning Marable, Howard Zinn, and Grace Paley interviewed by Amy Goodman. Democracy Now! September 13, 2001.
"Why can’t we take our cue from the rescue workers, from the compassion shown by the medical teams, the doctors and nurses and medical students, the firemen and policemen, whose thought—when they are taking care of these people and trying to find people and help them and cure them, their thought is not of retaliation. No, their thought is of human compassion and how to end the suffering."
Performed by Brian Jones. Haymarket Books. 2010.
Recorded performance of Howard Zinn's play Marx in Soho.
Howard Zinn interviewed by Amy Goodman. Democracy Now! December 7, 1998.
Last week’s announcement of the proposed merger of two oil giants, Exxon and Mobil, would create not only the largest oil company in the world, but also the world’s single largest corporation. We speak with historian Howard Zinn for the historical context of the merger, as well as his philosophy on life and activism.
HOWARD ZINN: "It’s just part of a long-term development in American history of the increasing power of corporations."
Various performers. Seven Stories Press. 2006.
Sixteen readings by an all-star cast from "Voices of a People's History."
Howard Zinn debates Fulton Lewis III at Emory University. Opening remarks by Nancy Perkins. Howard Zinn Papers, Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University. February 11, 1963.
On February 11, 1963, at Emory University, Howard Zinn participated in a debate with Fulton Lewis III, a journalist and member of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), on whether HUAC should be abolished. Zinn noted this in his diary and the two-and-half hour event was recorded.
Talk by Howard Zinn. AK Press. 2001.
In this informal talk given at the Taos Film Festival, Howard Zinn turns his attention to Hollywood, the stories it tells, and the ones it doesn’t.
Howard Zinn interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. Democracy Now! December 8, 2000.
"I mean, what’s astonishing, or maybe not so astonishing, is here over 200 years later, we are still operating with an undemocratic system of electing the president of the United States, a system which not only was flawed from the beginning by the requirements of the founding fathers, but had become more and more flawed as the election process has become dominated by two major parties, which monopolize the political arena, and dominated more and more by the fact that money decides who can reach the American people."
Howard Zinn interviewed by Bernard Rubin. WBGH Boston Open Vault. 1970s.
Bernard Rubin: What’s your definition of radical?
Howard Zinn: Somebody who wants to do something to make very fundamental changes in the distribution of wealth, in the distribution of political power, and in a kind of culture of violence and oppression in which we exist today. Race, sex, class oppression, something that fundamental. That’s what I mean, I guess.
Various performers. HarperAudio. 2004.
To celebrate the millionth copy sold of A People’s History of the United States, this reading at the 92nd Street Y in New York includes Alice Walker, Alfre Woodard, Kurt Vonnegut, James Earl Jones, Danny Glover, Marisa Tomei, Harris Yulin, Andre Gregory, and others.
Talks by Howard Zinn. AK Press. 2004.
A box set of four previous released talks with a 24-page booklet with an introduction by Noam Chomsky and a preface by Arundhati Roy.
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