You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

Rating:
Summary: Applied History 101: Knowledge and Action
Review: Again Zinn has brought us to the taproot of all history and knowledge: first-person experience. And Zinn's experiences are amazing! Never a dull moment. He is a breath of fresh air for anyone who thought history and historians were synoymous with dusty tombs and boring record-keeping. As Zinn will show you, history is not only about transmitting an honest story of the past to future generations, it's also about taking action. Read this book, and you will never feel like being the neutral bystander again!

Rating:
Summary: An inspiring read
Review: As any reader of his famous "People's History of the United States" knows, Howard Zinn never ceases to challenge the dominant orthodoxies of history. In this book, Zinn demonstrates how he embodied this effort in his own life, from his time as a teacher at a black women's college in Georgia and his involvement in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, though his protests against the Vietnam War to his years opposing John Sibler at Boston University

The result is an inspiring read, though one marred by the odd organization of the book. By choosing to focus on the campaigns he waged against the problems he encountered, Zinn provides less a traditional autobiography than an account of his public career. As a result, the reader is left to piece together the narrative of Zinn's life, which can be frustrating when seeking to understand how he became such a fervent activist to begin with. This is the only complaint with what is otherwise a passionate account of how one person can make a difference in the times in which he lives.

Rating:
Summary: "Sometimes to be silent is to lie"
Review: For those who believe in a "just" war, this book is for you! Zinn's chapters will elegantly reveal that "there isn't one." The book is poignant, straightforward.It is an exquisite (and perhaps painful) timely read for 2002.

Rating:
Summary: wonderful, interesting read
Review: I feel this was a wonderful book, and it is defenitly worth buying. The book is in a sense an autobiography, however, Zinn ties his life events with history. The book definitly has historical relevance. Zinn provides insight to the civil rights movement, the anti war movement, and afterword. He doesn't really talk about his upbringing much, which is unusual for autobiographies. He basically briefly discusses his upbringing in Brooklyn, and he talks about how he became interested in politics. He goes on to talk a little about his wife, family, and his involvement in world war 2. The book has not one tedious part. Once you start reading its hard to put down. Even if you don't agree with Zinn on his political views, you may still find this book to be interesting, because he describes important events in American history. All in all, this is a very interesting, moving book.

Rating:
Summary: An Inspiring Book
Review: I first became interested in Howard Zinn's work after reading his excellent People's History Of The United States. Though lacking the epic scope of that work, You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train is, in its way, just as good.

In it, we learn about Professor Zinn's experiences in civil rights and anti-war movements, in classrooms and in jails, at home and abroad. We meet any number of extraordinary people (not the least of which is Professor Zinn himself) and witness extraordinary events. Most importantly, perhaps, we see how the actions of ordinary people, however seemingly insignificant at the time, can have extraordinary effects.

Highly recommended to anyone who wants to see a cause for optimism in these troubling times.

Rating:
Summary: history big and small
Review: I really enjoyed this book. What does come through over and over is Zinn's sense of hope for the future - a sense of hope based on the changes that people can make individually when they speak up and act. Part of what I enjoyed was that the history is connected in a personal way to Zinn and his life, which provided an added richness. This is an interesting story of a fascinating man, but it is also a compassionate and personal view into history and some tumultuous times in the last 30 or 40 years.

It's hard to read this and not ask yourself questions about what you would have done in the same situation, and it seems to me that it's also difficult to avoid questioning what you can do now. Not that you need to agree with everything Zinn says, by any means. It's a push towards living by your own values, and standing up for what you see as right, even in very small ways.

This is not a hard-boiled-hit-you-on-the-head kind of memoir. Zinn has a sense of humor about himself, and doesn't lose a sense of reality. At one point he refuses to pay a fine and spends time in jail. After a night with the cockroaches he changes his mind and pays the fine. He doesn't come off as the perfect saint, only someone consistently willing to say something and someone who consistently tries to do the right thing. I admire him for that. And because of his humanity I can identify with him - and share his hope.

Rating:
Summary: history big and small
Review: I really enjoyed this book. What does come through over and over is Zinn's sense of hope for the future - a sense of hope based on the changes that people can make individually when they speak up and act. Part of what I enjoyed was that the history is connected in a personal way to Zinn and his life, which provided an added richness. This is an interesting story of a fascinating man, but it is also a compassionate and personal view into history and some tumultuous times in the last 30 or 40 years.

It's hard to read this and not ask yourself questions about what you would have done in the same situation, and it seems to me that it's also difficult to avoid questioning what you can do now. Not that you need to agree with everything Zinn says, by any means. It's a push towards living by your own values, and standing up for what you see as right, even in very small ways.

This is not a hard-boiled-hit-you-on-the-head kind of memoir. Zinn has a sense of humor about himself, and doesn't lose a sense of reality. At one point he refuses to pay a fine and spends time in jail. After a night with the cockroaches he changes his mind and pays the fine. He doesn't come off as the perfect saint, only someone consistently willing to say something and someone who consistently tries to do the right thing. I admire him for that. And because of his humanity I can identify with him - and share his hope.

Rating:
Summary: An autobiography that's actually worth reading
Review: Let's face it. Most autobiographies are ego-massaging personal recollections that shed little light on what makes the author tick. But this book represents what an autobiography should be, because it covers Zinn's political history and how his political and historical views have shaped his life. So in reading this book, we not only know something about Zinn, we learn a great deal about the history of the United States over the past 50 years. To the extent Zinn discusses his personal history, it is usually in the context of his political education, for example, working at Brooklyn shipyards as a youth or flying airplanes in World War II or teaching college in the South during the early 1960's. These personal events shape Zinn's views on labor, war and civil rights. Like Forrest Gump, Zinn was there during the 20th Century's most important events. He has lived an extraordinary life and his views on history deserve the greatest respect. Read this book to see what a real autobiography should look like.

Rating:
Summary: An autobiography that's actually worth reading
Review: Let's face it. Most autobiographies are ego-massaging personal recollections that shed little light on what makes the author tick. But this book represents what an autobiography should be, because it covers Zinn's political history and how his political and historical views have shaped his life. So in reading this book, we not only know something about Zinn, we learn a great deal about the history of the United States over the past 50 years. To the extent Zinn discusses his personal history, it is usually in the context of his political education, for example, working at Brooklyn shipyards as a youth or flying airplanes in World War II or teaching college in the South during the early 1960's. These personal events shape Zinn's views on labor, war and civil rights. Like Forrest Gump, Zinn was there during the 20th Century's most important events. He has lived an extraordinary life and his views on history deserve the greatest respect. Read this book to see what a real autobiography should look like.

Rating:
Summary: The Wrong Kind of Regrets
Review: Oh dear,

Howie Zinn writes movingly about how much he is anti-war based on his experiences as a USAAF bombardier during World War II.
Gee, he is upset because he dropped high ordinance on the Nazis.
Hello, Howie? Are you there?

If Zinn and hundreds of thousands of other Americans had refused to put on a uniform and go and fight Hitler, people like Howie Zinn, his adversary John Silber, and folks like me might not be around today. I wonder how many of Howie's family in Europe paid the horrible price of being in murdered in the Holocaust thanks to the appeasement policies then that he espouses in regards to Iraq now?

I also wonder how much regrets Howie has towards being a Stalinist, a member of the CPUSA during his youth. This is something that he did address in his book, but oh-so-lightly as if he didn't want the reader to know this sordid part of his past.

His Civil Rights activites are personal and they are admirable, but seriously, Howie has this inflated opinion of himself which regrettably was reinforced by Damon and Affleck in "Good Wil Hunting". This autobiography would have made more interesting reading had it come from someone like a Bill Herrick ("Jumping the Line") who not only fought Fascism and participated in the Civil Rights Struggle, but honestly repudiated the CPUSA when Adolf and Uncle Joe decided to go to bed with each other. Herrick, a wounded veteran of the war against Fascism chose to do so. Zinn, to his discredit did not, even in his rush to denounce all kinds of war, including the one to stop Hitlerism.