A wide-ranging collection of speeches—many published here for the first time—by the historian and author of A People’s History of the United States.

Howard Zinn has illuminated our history like no other US historian. This collection of his speeches on protest movements, racism, war, and American history covers more than four decades of his active engagement with the audiences he inspired with his humor, insight, and clarity.

This volume features Zinn’s impassioned and erudite statements on the war in Vietnam, abolishing the death penalty, the legacy of Emma Goldman, the myth of American exceptionalism, the Obama Administration, and much more.

“Reading Howard’s spoken words, I feel that I am almost hearing his voice again—his stunning pitch-perfect ability to capture the moment and the concerns and needs of the audience, whoever they may be, always enlightening, often stirring, an amalgam of insight, critical history, wit, blended with charm and appeal.” —Noam Chomsky, leading public intellectual and author of Hopes and Prospects

“With ferocious moral clarity and mischievous humor, Howard turned routine antiwar rallies into profound explorations of state violence and staid academic conferences into revival meetings for social change.” —Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and The Battle For Paradise