13-Mar-2003

Runner-up:

Alexander Provan, Brown University Book: A People's History of the United States Author: Howard Zinn ISBN: 0060937319 The power of knowledge lies in its ability to provoke just action. Too often in politics the importance of such knowledge is eclipsed by the powerful forces of electoral appeal, political deal-making, and corporate pressure—so much so that “politician” has become a dirty word. But the power of knowledge cannot be so easily suppressed, and its emergence has the ability to profoundly affect our world. A poignant past example is Upton Sinclair’s muckraking masterpiece The Jungle, which sparked President Theodore Roosevelt’s effort to regulate and sanitize America’s meat industry. I suggest that all politicians read A People's History of the United States, by Boston University professor emeritus and eminent political activist Howard Zinn. This book tells the story of the United States from the time of Columbus through the Clinton years, illuminating the voices of those often forgotten in most textbooks—blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, laborers. If history is written by the winners, this is the story of the losers, and it is a powerful testament to the courage of those who fought the status quo in order to make our country a better place. Whether or not their battles were immediately triumphant, their impact is indelible in our nation’s history and serves as a reminder of the value of commitment to social justice by both citizens and elected officials. The historical accounts offered by Zinn, covering revolutions and atrocities, the inspirational and the tragic, encourage the reader to adopt a critical perspective of history and the development of our country. As importantly, Zinn explores the role of the individual in shaping society for the better. As politicians so often have the chance to determine the path of history, it is imperative that they know how and by what means the past has been shaped, and how time judges the actions of the past. The turbulence of this new century, in which we face problems as varied and catastrophic as AIDS, terrorism, the destruction of the environment, world hunger, and numerous geopolitical tensions, require of our leaders a critical perspective that is the hallmark of responsible, equitable governance. Zinn’s book provides such a perspective. Though his book is not prescriptive, it is impossible not to glean from it a sense of what is just, and how one charged with political power should act. History can be a tool for the betterment of society if we learn to expose the faults of the past and take steps to insure they are not repeated. Speaking of the atrocities of the last century—Hiroshima, Vietnam, McCarthyism, the near-genocide of the American Indians—Zinn says, “One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth.” The threat of such atrocities is still with us today, and hope for their destruction lies in our leaders and their ability to turn the mistakes of the past into hope for the future.