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In April 1945, a few weeks before the war in Europe ended, the American bombardier Howard Zinn dropped napalm on Royan, a seaside town in western France; he later learned the raids had killed more than a thousand French civilians. He put his medals in a folder marked “Never again”, studied history on the GI Bill, and taught at Spelman College in Atlanta during the civil rights movement until the college fired him in 1963. In 1980 he published A People’s History of the United States, which told the country’s story from the side of the people on the receiving end and has been read in schools and colleges ever since. This guide covers his 10 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key books · 1964–2004 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Howard Zinn (1922–2010) published about forty books, collections and plays. The best known is A People’s History of the United States (1980), followed by his memoir You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994) and Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004), with Anthony Arnove. Start with A People’s History; the guide below also explains what other historians have argued against it.
Where to Start with Howard Zinn
If you want the book everyone argues about
→ A People’s History of the United States (1980) — American history from 1492 told from below.
If you want his own story
→ You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994) — the war, Spelman, Vietnam, in his own words.
If you want the civil rights years up close
→ SNCC (1964) — written as an adviser to the movement.
If you want the original documents
→ Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004).
10 Howard Zinn Books, in Order
SNCC
An account of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the young activists who organised sit-ins and voter registration in the Deep South, written while Zinn was serving as one of its advisers. He reports from the campaigns themselves, including Freedom Day in Selma in October 1963, and compares the students to the abolitionists of the nineteenth century.
The Southern Mystique
Essays drawn from his seven years at Spelman College, an all-Black women’s college in segregated Atlanta. Zinn argues against the idea that the South is a place apart: its racism, he writes, is the nation’s racism in concentrated form, and it can change as fast as the rest of the country.
Vietnam
One of the first books to argue that the United States should leave Vietnam immediately and without conditions, rather than negotiate its way out. The following year Zinn travelled to Hanoi with the priest Daniel Berrigan to bring home American prisoners released by North Vietnam.
Disobedience and Democracy
A defence of civil disobedience, set out as a reply to nine common arguments for obeying the law in all circumstances. Zinn draws his examples from the civil rights movement and the protests against the Vietnam War.
The Politics of History
Essays on what history is for. Zinn argues that no historian is neutral, because choosing what to include is already a choice, and that history should be written openly in the service of human values. Several chapters apply the idea to slavery, the New Deal and American foreign policy.
A People’s History of the United States
American history from Columbus to the present, told from the point of view of Native Americans, enslaved people, workers, women, soldiers and protesters rather than presidents and generals. It accuses Columbus of genocide and is critical of presidents from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D. Roosevelt. It began with a small first printing, reached a million copies by 2003 and was updated in later editions; other historians have attacked it as one-sided (see the FAQ below).
Declarations of Independence
Essays that test widely held American assumptions against the record: the national interest, the idea of a just war, the rule of law, free speech and the claims of political “realism”.
You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train
His memoir: a working-class childhood in Brooklyn, the shipyard, the bomber war, the Spelman years and his dismissal, the Vietnam protests and his long conflict with the president of Boston University, John Silber. A documentary with the same title, narrated by Matt Damon, followed in 2004.
Marx in Soho
A one-man play in which Karl Marx comes back to the present to clear his name and talks to the audience about his life, his family and what has been done in his name. It is the best known of his three plays, which were collected in 2010 together with Emma and Daughter of Venus.
Voices of a People’s History of the United States
A companion to A People’s History, edited with Anthony Arnove: speeches, letters, poems and testimony by the people the first book is about, from Bartolomé de las Casas to modern activists. Similar readings were performed in The People Speak, the documentary shown on the History Channel in 2009.
In What Order to Read Howard Zinn
None of Zinn’s books depend on each other, so you can read by subject. A People’s History is the centre of his work: the earlier books on civil rights, Vietnam and civil disobedience are the reporting and arguments it grew from, and most of the later ones are essays, speeches and companions to it.
If you want to read him the way he worked, put The Politics of History or the memoir next to A People’s History; they explain why he refused to write a neutral history. Then read one of his critics, such as Michael Kazin or Sam Wineburg, to see the case against it.
A reading path
1. A People’s History of the United States (1980)
2. You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994)
3. SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964)
4. The Politics of History (1970)
5. Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004)
Everything Else Howard Zinn Published
Beyond the 10 key books: 16 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
History and politics
6
6 books · 1959–2010
- 1959LaGuardia in Congresshis doctoral dissertation, on Fiorello La Guardia’s years in the House
- 1973Postwar America: 1945–1971the United States from the end of the war to Vietnam
- 1977Justice in Everyday Lifehow the law works in practice
- 1984The Twentieth Century: A People’s Historythe twentieth-century chapters of the larger book
- 2001Three Strikesthree labour struggles of the twentieth century
- 2010The Bombon Hiroshima and the bombing of Royan
Essays, speeches and collections
9
9 books · 1993–2012
- 1993Failure to Quitreflections of an optimistic historian
- 1997The Zinn Readerwritings on disobedience and democracy
- 1999The Future of Historyinterviews
- 2001Howard Zinn on Waressays
- 2001Howard Zinn on Historyessays
- 2002Terrorism and Warinterviews after 11 September 2001
- 2003Artists in Times of Waressays
- 2007A Power Governments Cannot Suppressessays
- 2012Howard Zinn Speakscollected speeches, 1963–2009
Plays
1
1 book · 2010
- 2010Three PlaysEmma, Marx in Soho and Daughter of Venus
The years · 1922–2010
Quick facts about Howard Zinn
- Known for
- Howard Zinn is known for writing American history from the point of view of ordinary people, workers and protesters rather than its leaders, and for taking part in the movements he wrote about.
- 1922
- Born in Brooklyn, New York
- 1945
- Drops napalm on Royan as a bombardier
- 1963
- Fired by Spelman College
- 2010
- Dies in Santa Monica, California
- Born
- 24 August 1922, Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish immigrant parents
- Died
- 27 January 2010, Santa Monica, California, aged 87
- War
- Bombardier in the US Army Air Forces in Europe; awarded the Air Medal
- Education
- New York University (BA, 1951); Columbia University (PhD in history, 1958)
- Taught
- Spelman College, 1956–1963; Boston University, 1964–1988
- Married
- Roslyn Shechter, in 1944; two children, Myla and Jeff
- Honours
- Eugene V. Debs Award and Lannan Literary Award (both 1998); Upton Sinclair Award (1999)
The red mark is 1980: A People’s History of the United States, the book that made his name.
How Howard Zinn Writes: History from Below
Zinn writes history from the bottom up. A People’s History opens not with Columbus’s courage but with the Arawaks he met in the Bahamas, and the rest of the book follows the same rule: wars are told by the soldiers and the people they were fought over, the economy by strikers and factory girls. He says plainly that this is a choice, and that the usual story had already been told a thousand times.
He makes no claim to neutrality, and argues in The Politics of History that no historian has it. In a 1998 interview he said he was not trying to write an objective or complete history. His books quote heavily: letters, speeches and testimony carry much of the argument, which is why Voices of a People’s History works as a companion volume.
Much of what he wrote comes from what he did. SNCC was written by an adviser to the movement, the Vietnam books by someone who went to Hanoi, and his writing on bombing by a former bombardier. The same voice runs through his plays and speeches: short sentences, plain words, and an argument always aimed at a reader who could act on it.
Watch
Howard Zinn in Conversation with Harry Kreisler
Harry Kreisler of UC Berkeley interviews historian Howard Zinn for the Conversations with History series, recorded in 2001 and posted in 2008. From the official University of California Television (UCTV) channel.
Frequently asked questions about Howard Zinn’s books
How many books has Howard Zinn written?
About forty, counting collections, speeches and plays; several were published after his death in 2010. Ten are the key books on this page, from SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964) to Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004).
What are Howard Zinn’s books in order?
SNCC: The New Abolitionists (1964), The Southern Mystique (1964), Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal (1967), Disobedience and Democracy (1968), The Politics of History (1970), A People’s History of the United States (1980), Declarations of Independence (1990), You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994), Marx in Soho (1999) and Voices of a People’s History of the United States (2004).
Where should I start with Howard Zinn?
With A People’s History of the United States (1980), the book his other work grows out of. If you would rather begin with the man, read his memoir You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (1994).
What is Howard Zinn’s most famous book?
A People’s History of the United States (1980). It started with a small first printing, passed a million copies in 2003, and the Howard Zinn website now puts sales at more than three million. It has been taught widely in American high schools and colleges.
Why do some historians criticise A People’s History?
Critics say it trades one simple story for another. Michael Kazin, writing in Dissent in 2004, called it “bad history, albeit gilded with virtuous intentions”, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called Zinn “a polemicist, not a historian”. In “Undue Certainty” (American Educator, winter 2012–13), the Stanford historian of education Sam Wineburg argued that it repeats the faults it set out to correct. Defenders, including the Zinn Education Project, answer that Zinn never claimed to be objective and wrote openly from the side of people left out of textbooks. The book was also attacked politically: in emails from February 2010, reported by the Associated Press in 2013, the Indiana governor Mitch Daniels called it “propaganda” and asked that it be kept out of the state’s schools.
Is Howard Zinn still alive?
No. He died of a heart attack on 27 January 2010 in Santa Monica, California, aged 87. He was born in Brooklyn on 24 August 1922.
Is A People’s History in Good Will Hunting?
Yes. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who grew up near the Zinn family, had Damon’s character recommend the book in their Oscar-winning screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997).
Are there films about Howard Zinn or his books?
Two documentaries. Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train (2004), narrated by Matt Damon, is about his life. The People Speak (2009), shown on the History Channel, has actors and musicians including Matt Damon, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen performing letters, speeches and other texts from American history drawn from Zinn’s books, with Zinn as narrator.
What did Howard Zinn do in the Second World War?
He joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and flew as a bombardier in Europe, earning the Air Medal. In April 1945 he dropped napalm on Royan in France, which he later wrote about in essays collected in The Bomb (2010); after the war he filed his medals in a folder marked “Never again”.
Why was Howard Zinn fired from Spelman College?
Spelman dismissed him in June 1963 for “insubordination”, after he had supported his students’ sit-ins and criticised the college for holding back from the civil rights movement. “Which happened to be true,” he said later. Alice Walker was among his students, and Spelman invited him back to give the commencement address in 2005.
Footnotes
- Howard Zinn — Wikipedia
- Howard Zinn: About — howardzinn.org
- Bibliography — howardzinn.org
- Howard Zinn obituary (AP) — WBUR, 2010
- Bashing Howard Zinn: a critical look at one of the critics — Zinn Education Project
- Former governor Daniels wanted popular historian censored — StateImpact Indiana, 2013
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“There’s no such thing as a whole story; every story is incomplete.”
— Howard Zinn, interview with the Associated Press (1998)
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