This year is the 100th anniversary of Howard Zinn’s birth. Zinn, who died in 2010 at 87, was a historian, professor, activist, and author of A People’s History of the United States, which has sold more than 4 million copies and is perhaps the most widely read U.S. history book. Through the years, Zinn granted interviews to Rethinking Schools, allowed us to reprint his writing, gave us kind blurbs for our books, and later collaborated with us and Teaching for Change to promote people’s history teaching by establishing the Zinn Education Project.
In Howard Zinn’s honor, we are featuring a “Zinn at 100” essay in each issue of Rethinking Schools this year. This is not nostalgia. We commemorate and celebrate Zinn for his ongoing relevance in helping us think about education and activism.
“Zinn at 100” Essays
Eugene Debs and the Idea of Socialism
By Howard Zinn
The Scourge of Nationalism: What Makes Our Nation Immune from the Normal Standards of Human Decency?
By Howard Zinn
Don’t Despair About the Supreme Court
By Howard Zinn
Empire or Humanity? What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me About the American Empire
By Howard Zinn
Events
Throughout the week of the 100th anniversary of Howard Zinn’s birth on Aug. 24, 1922, there will be events for educators, archivists, and the wider community to learn from Zinn’s life and work — and to share the many ways that people continue to document and teach people’s history.
The events, from August 22 – 25, 2022, are free and online.
Related Books
A People’s History for the Classroom by Bill Bigelow was published in 2008 by Rethinking Schools in cooperation with Teaching for Change as part of the Zinn Education Project. The book complements Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. It features thought-provoking teaching strategies — role plays, imaginative writing activities, student-friendly background readings, and more — that illustrate how a people’s history can be brought to life in the classroom.
“I can think of no better way to excite young people about the history of our country than to introduce them to the teaching activities in A People’s History for the Classroom.”
—Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States