Open Media
2 total works
Truth—as Zinn shows us in the interviews that make up Terrorism and War—has indeed been the first casualty of war, starting from the beginnings of American empire in the Spanish-American War. But war has many other casualties, he argues, including civil liberties on the home front and human rights abroad. In Terrorism and War, Zinn explores the growth of the American empire, as well as the long tradition of resistance in this country to U.S. militarism, from Eugene Debs and the Socialist Party during World War One to the opponents of U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan today.
"Political power," says Howard Zinn, "is controlled by the corporate elite, and the arts are the locale for a kind of guerilla warfare in the sense that guerillas look for apertures and opportunities where they can have an effect." In Artists in Times of War, Zinn looks at the possibilities to create such apertures through art, film, activism, publishing and through our everyday lives. In this collection of four essays, the author of A People's History of the United States writes about why "To criticize the government is the highest act of patriotism." Filled with quotes and examples from the likes of Bob Dylan, Mark Twain, e. e. cummings, Thomas Paine, Joseph Heller, and Emma Goldman, Zinn's essays discuss America's rich cultural counternarratives to war, so needed in these days of unchallenged U.S. militarism.