Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn, the author of the best seller "A People's History of the United States", is a historian, political scientist and social activist well-known for his involvement in progressive causes. Zinn was born on August 24, 1922 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of immigrant Jewish parents. During the early years of World War Two, Zinn worked as a defense industry worker in the Brooklyn shipyards and became a labor union organizer. He subsequently served as a bombardier in U.S. Army Air Force's 490th Bomb Group, which conducted bombing missions in Europe. Zinn came to question the value of the strategic bombing of France and Germany, which caused millions of civilian casualties. After the war, Zinn too his B.A. in history at New York University and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. His doctoral dissertation on Fiorello LaGuardia's career as a Congressman was published as "LaGuardia in Congress" by the Cornell University Press. Zinn's book concluded that LaGuardia's pr