Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and JusticeFrom the bestselling author of A People's History of the United States comes this selection of passionate, honest, and piercing essays looking at American political ideology. Howard Zinn brings to Passionate Declarations the same astringent style and provocative point of view that led more than a million people to buy his book A People's History of the United States. He directs his critique here to what he calls "American orthodoxies" -- that set of beliefs guardians of our culture consider sacrosanct: justifications for war, cynicism about human nature and violence, pride in our economic system, certainty of our freedom of speech, romanticization of representative government, confidence in our system of justice. Those orthodoxies, he believes, have a chilling effect on our capacity to think independently and to become active citizens in the long struggle for peace and justice. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 9
... question of prisons there is debate on how many prisons we should have . But the idea of abolishing prisons is too outrageous even to be discussed . We hear argument about how much the elderly should have to pay for health care , but ...
... question of ends : conquest . And the question of means : force . Machiavelli refused to be deflected by utopian dreams or romantic hopes and by questions of right and wrong or good and bad . He is the father of modern political realism ...
... questions and lying an- swers in case the issue of the invasion came up in a press conference : Q Mr. President , is CIA involved in this affair ? A. I can assure you that the United States has no intention of using force to overthrow ...
... questions . They were professionals , to- tally consumed with doing “ a good job " and they would do that job for whoever happened to be in power . So , when Hitler was defeated and Von Braun was brought by military intelligence agents ...
... question of human consequences . After the war when the making of a thermonuclear bomb was pro- posed , a bomb a thousand times more destructive than the one dropped on Hiroshima , J. Robert Oppenheimer , personally horrified by the ...
Contents
1 | |
32 | |
FOUR The Use and Abuse of History | 48 |
The American Class System | 147 |
Second Thoughts on the First Amendment | 182 |
The Black Experience | 231 |
ELEVEN The Ultimate Power | 278 |
NOTES | 303 |
INDEX | 333 |