Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology [Paperback]

Howard Zinn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1991

The acclaimed author of A People's History of the United States (more than 200,000 copies sold) presents an honest and piercing look at American political ideology.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In these informal, challenging essays that link the personal to the political, Zinn ( A People's History of the United States ) aims to shake complacency, to challenge what he calls "American orthodoxies" or received opinions about history and government. He charges that Machiavellian tactics have dominated policies of presidents in their pursuit of "national security interests." Calling the American economic system "shamefully wasteful and unjust," the Boston University political scientist urges a "real war on poverty" and on pollution, a turnaround in national priorities away from massive military spending. Recognition that the Soviet Union is a police state, he believes, should not lead us to embrace "fanatical anticommunism" or to justify the U.S. government's control over other countries. He argues that there are no just wars, accuses the major media of slavishness to government-business control and knocks social theories that resort to "human nature" to explain war and class inequities.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A shotgun blast of revisionism that aims to shatter all the comfortable myths of American political discourse." -- --Los Angeles Times

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Perennial (October 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060921080
• ISBN-13: 978-0060921088
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #303,765 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was a historian, playwright, and activist. He wrote the classic A People's History of the United States, "a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those ... whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories" (Library Journal). The book, which has sold more than two million copies, has been featured on The Sopranos and Simpsons, and in the film Good Will Hunting. In 2009, History aired The People Speak, an acclaimed documentary co-directed by Zinn, based on A People's History and a companion volume, Voices of a People's History of the United States.

Zinn grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class, immigrant household. At 18 he became a shipyard worker and then flew bomber missions during World War II. These experiences helped shape his opposition to war and passion for history. After attending college under the GI Bill and earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia, he taught at Spelman, where he became active in the civil rights movement. After being fired by Spelman for his support for student protesters, Zinn became a professor of Political Science at Boston University, were he taught until his retirement in 1988.

Zinn was the author of many books, including an autobiography, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, the play Marx in Soho, and Passionate Declarations. He received the Lannan Foundation Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Eugene V. Debs award for his writing and political activism.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An essential manual for understanding the world, February 3, 2001

By 

Matthew Cheney (New Hampton, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (Paperback)

Declarations of Independence is one of those few books with the power to change your life and blow your mind if you read it at the right time. There is no better introduction to modern progressive philosophy. When I stumbled on the book (soon after it first came out in 1990, in the midst of the Gulf War), I was in high school and trying to figure out some way of understanding the world beyond myself, and this was the book that helped me begin exploring. I found the insights so fresh, exciting, and provocative that I devoured the book in a few days, then returned to read it again and more carefully. I have returned to it many times since, and with every reading I am amazed at the clarity of Zinn's writing and the common sense and great decency which fills his thinking.

Declarations of Independence seeks to uncover the motives and hypocrisies in many of the ideas Americans take for granted. As a historian and the reknowned author of A People's History of the United States, Zinn is in a position to offer an incisive perspective on our present from someone who understands so much of our past. In one elegant chapter after another, Zinn meditates on American foreign policy, violence and human nature, law and justice, the American class system, just and unjust war, Communism and anti-Communism, and, of course, the use and abuse of history. In many ways, this is a broader and even more accessible book than A People's History of the United States, and just as necessary for anyone concerned with thinking their own thoughts and living a humane life.

48 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unforgettable Trek Through American Mentality, March 10, 2000

By 

Aaron Carman - See all my reviews

This review is from: Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (Paperback)

"Declarations of Independence" should be required reading at every high school in America. The focus of this work is on the plethora of facts and events that never reach the minds of school children. It thankfully takes a swing at everything we as Americans take for granted. This book will be of great use to anyone who has ever asked of the "American system", "Why does it have to be that way?" and has gotten the answer, "Because that is the way it has always been." Zinn illuminates the social and economic struggles of the common man, woman, and child that are all too often overlooked in textbooks that strive for a glowing and idealistic reckoning over the darker, more realistic truth. In a challenging piece of reading, Zinn takes us on a journey through the common myths and misconceptions of American ideology and begs us to stop seeing the status quo as unalterable. This is a first-class book that deserves to be read by everyone calling themselves "Americans".

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let Howard Zinn shake out the cobwebs and open your eyes, June 13, 2003

By 

Patricia Kramer (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology (Paperback)

"There is a fable written by German playwright Bertolt Brecht that goes roughly like this: A man living alone answers a knock at the door. When he opens it, he sees in the doorway the powerful body, the cruel face, of The Tyrant. The Tyrant asks, "Will you submit?" The man does not reply. He steps aside. The Tyrant enters and establishes himself in the man's house. The man serves him for years. Then The Tyrant becomes sick from food poisoning. He dies. The man wraps the body, opens the door, gets rid of the body, comes back to his house, closes the door behind him, and says, firmly, "No.""

This quote illustrates Zinn's contention that momentous changes can occur with patience and without submission. Zinn points out that throughout history, the results of wars are not what were expected or planned, unpredicatable events occur. Given that, the "unacceptable means" of war do not justify the "uncertain ends".

This book was written in 1990 before the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of apartheid although Zinn states the hope that such events will happen.

Although these milestones in history were yet to come, I was struck by the timeliness of the book, many sections could have been written about events and trends happening today. I recommend this book to everyone who feels swept away and powerless in America today. Read this book and do not submit.