You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
by Howard Zinn
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Book Summary Information
Author: Howard ZinnEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-09-05
ISBN: 0807071277
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Beacon Press
Book Reviews of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
Book Review: "Being hopeful in bad times..." *
Summary: 5 Stars
A viewing of the film "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" sent me back to Zinn's memoir of the same title, which I first read back in the mid-90s. Elegantly written, insightful, and both inspiring and just plain fun to read, Zinn's autobiographical essays (for the book is really more that than a traditional chronological memoir) are a joy to read.
The book is divided into three sections: Zinn's work in the Civil Rights movement during his years at Atlanta's Spelman College--a job he eventually lost, despite tenure, because he was just too "radical" for the then-president; his peace-making work during the Vietnam years, including the historic journey with Dan Berrigan to North Vietnam; and a miscellaneous collection of essays ranging from his jail experiences to his long battle with Boston University president Joe Silber. Also in this section is a touching memoir of Zinn's blue-collar childhood.
I found the first section the most moving, as well as the most revealing. The legal discrimination that Zinn chronicles is almost unbelievable today. Just one example: Dr. Otis Smith (who only recently died, by the way) was sentenced to 8 months hard labor because he dared to tell a white woman not to interrupt a phone conversation he was having with a patient. Incredible!
Zinn's personal recollections are fascinating. What makes his book valuable is that it's really, as its subtitle says, a personal history of one of the most turbulent and important periods in American history--a time in which, as Zinn often says, the voices frequently ignored by mainstream historians insisted on being heard.
* "To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness." (p. 208)
Summary of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, tells his personal stories about more than thirty years of fighting for social change, from teaching at Spelman College to recent protests against war.A former bombardier in WWII, Zinn emerged in the civil rights movement as a powerful voice for justice. Although he's a fierce critic, he gives us reason to hope that by learning from history and engaging politically, we can make a difference in the world.
By any standards, Howard Zinn has led a remarkable life as teacher, writer, and social activist, a life in which those three categories are viewed not as compartmentalized tasks but as part of a unified identity. You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, a title taken from his advice to students about his take on American history and current events, is a powerful testament to that life.
It begins with his 1956 acceptance of a teaching post at Atlanta's Spelman College, a school for black women that would soon be caught up in the civil rights movement. Zinn, who had already been radicalized on the streets of Brooklyn as a teenager, got caught up along with his students (who included the future head of the Children's Defense Fund, Marian Wright Edelman, and author Alice Walker), and was kicked out in 1963 for "insubordination." He moved to Boston University, where he became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, and would prove a constant thorn in the side of university president John Silber throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Zinn writes in plain language that brooks no nonsense when it speaks of moral urgency, but he isn't above a sense of humor. Noting that the FBI was watching him constantly during the war era, he wryly observes that, "I have grown to depend on them for accurate reports on my speeches." Individual scenes leap out at the reader: Zinn's horror when he realized, years after WWII, that he had dropped napalm bombs on German troops; a meeting in a college classroom with the sister and parents of one of the victims of the Kent State massacre; Selma, Alabama, police beating blacks attempting to register to vote while federal agents stand by and do nothing. Through it all, Zinn writes, "I see this as the central issue of our time: how to find a substitute for war in human ingenuity, imagination, courage, sacrifice, patience." --Ron Hogan
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