A terrific companion to Zinn's "A People's History."
"The purpose of Zinn's work, Voices included, is to engage in an act of political dissidence and activism. "What is common to all of these voices," Zinn and co-editor Anthony Arnove write in the book's introduction, "is that they have mostly been shut out of the orthodox histories, the major media, the standard textbooks, the controlled culture ... to create a passive citizenry." With Voices, Zinn and Arnove seek to address that malaise, showing that the impossible--slaves rising up against their slave masters, for example--is not only possible, but has occurred repeatedly throughout the country's history. "Whenever injustices have been remedied, wars halted, women and blacks and Native Americans given their due," they write, "it has been because 'unimportant' people spoke up, organized, protested, and brought democracy alive.""
“Voices should be on every bookshelf. [It presents] the rich tradition of struggle in the United States, from the resistance to the conquest of the Americas in the era of Columbus through the protests today of soldiers and their families against the brutal invasion and occupation of Iraq.”—Arundhati Roy
“In Voices, Howard Zinn has given us our true story, the ongoing, not-so-secret narrative of race and class in America.”—Russell Banks
“Gut-wrenching.”—Jon Stewart
“To omit or to minimize these voices of resistance is to create the idea that power only rests with those who have the guns, who possess the wealth, who own the newspapers and the television stations. I want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color, or women—once they organize and protest and create movements—have a voice no government can suppress.”—Howard Zinn, from the Introduction
"Voices of a People’s History of the United States is the companion volume to historian Howard Zinn’s legendary best-selling book A People’s History of the United States. This second edition introduces four new voices: Camílo Mejia, the first U.S. soldier serving in Iraq to go public with his refusal to continue fighting Bush’s war; Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in action in Iraq, and whose speeches galvanized sentiment against the occupation of Iraq; Kevin Tillman, whose brother Pat, a former NFL player, was killed in Afghanistan in a case of “friendly fire”; and twelve-year-old Evann Orleck-Jetter, who testified before a 2009 public hearing of the Joint Senate and House Judiciary Committee in Vermont in support of equal rights for gay and lesbian families.
Historian and activist Howard Zinn's visionary telling of our history is widely considered one of the most important and influential of our era. In A People’s History of the United States, A Young People’s History of the United States, Voices of a People’s History of the United States, and, in Spanish, La otra historia de los Estados Unidos, Zinn affirms the power of the people to influence the course of events. Zinn’s other books include the newly updated The Zinn Reader, Terrorism and War with Anthony Arnove, the autobiographical You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, and the play Marx in Soho."
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According to a tweet by CBS reporter Mark Knoller, this morning President Obama criticised Uganda's "kill gays" bill at the National Prayer Breakfast before the very GOP group responsible for backing the proposed law. The New York Times has the complete advance text of the president's planned speech, where no mention of Uganda or gay marriage is found, so it appears that Obama went off-script.
