A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
by Howard Zinn

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
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Book Summary Information

Author: Howard Zinn
Edition: Paperback
Published: 2006-12-01
ISBN: 0872864758
Number of pages: 308
Publisher: City Lights Publishers

Book Reviews of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

Book Review: Misguided Power
Summary: 2 Stars

Zinn accurately points out that a disgruntled citizenry can overpower the guns and force of the largest governments. He correctly identifies problems with our current system of government; however his solutions are misguided at best.

He puts too much faith in the ability of government to fix problems and actually calls for more government intervention - apparently oblivious to the fact that government almost always exasperates the very problems it attempts to solve.

He riles against government subsidies to large corporations yet lauds government subsidies to "the disadvantaged". He is vehemently opposes a society segregated by class and in the same breath extols a welfare system that reinforces such segregation. He mocks the idea of a free market while never admitting that no such market has ever existed in this country due to government intervention.

As a historian, it should be obvious to Zinn that his utopian socialist society, while arguably pretty on paper, is disastrous in the real world. His solutions are not new and are based on ideals that have proven to be inefficient, if not tantamount to slavery.

A real solution to the issues he brings up is one that has not been tried and failed but one that is based on principal; one that completely opposes the initiation of force against everyone in society; one that reserves and restricts government power to defending the sovereignty of the nation and protecting it's citizen's inalienable freedoms.

Summary of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress

"Thank you, Howard Zinn. Thank you for telling us what none of our leaders are willing to: The truth. And you tell it with such brilliance, such humanity. It is a personal honor to be able to say I am a better citizen because of you."-- Michael Moore, director of the film Fahrenheit 9/11, and author of the New York Times bestseller, Stupid White Men ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!

Find here the voice of the well-educated and honorable and capable and human United States of America, which might have existed if only absolute power had not corrupted its third-rate leaders so absolutely.-- Kurt Vonnegut, author of A Man Without a Country

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, is a major new collection of essays on American history, class, immigration, justice, and ordinary citizens who have made a difference. Zinn addresses America's current political/ethical crisis using lessons learned from our nation's history. Zinn brings a profoundly human, yet uniquely American perspective to each subject he writes about, whether it's the abolition of war, terrorism, the Founding Fathers, the Holocaust, defending the rights of immigrants, or personal liberties. Written in an accessible, personal tone, Zinn approaches the telling of U.S. history from an active, engaged point of view. "America's future is linked to how we understand our past," writes Zinn; "For this reason, writing about history, for me, is never a neutral act."

Zinn frames the book with an opening essay titled "If History is to be Creative," a reflection on the role and responsibility of the historian. "To think that history-writing must aim simply to recapitulate the failures that dominate the past," writes Zinn, "is to make historians collaborators in an endless cycle of defeat." "If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, and occasionally win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare."

Buzzing with stories and ideas, Zinn draws upon fascinating, little-known historical anecdotes spanning from the Declaration of Independence to the USA PATRIOT Act to comment on the most controversial issues facing us today: government dishonesty, how to respond to terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the loss of our liberties, immigration, and the responsibility of the citizen to confront power for the common good.

Considered a "modern-day Thoreau" by Jonathon Kozol, Zinn's inspired writings address the reader as an active participant in history making. "We live in a beautiful country," writes Zinn, in the book's opening chapter. "But people who have no respect for human life, freedom, or justice have taken it over. It is now up to all of us to take it back."

Featuring essays penned over an eight-year period, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress is Howard Zinn's first writerly work in several years, an invaluable post-9/11-era addition to the themes that run through his bestselling classic, A People's History Of the United States.

Howard Zinn is a veteran of World War II and author of many books and plays, including the million-selling classic, A People's History of the United States.

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