SOURCE: Rothschild, Matthew. Review of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train, by Howard Zinn. Progressive 59, no. 1 (January 1995): 37-8.

In the following review, Rothschild contends that Zinn's autobiography presents an eloquent record of his activism in the civil rights and anti-war movements.

Here's a personal favorite. This autobiography by the great activist and historian (who wrote the pioneering multicultural history. A People's History of the United States, long before the term “multiculturalism” was in vogue) provides an eloquent, personal account of the struggles for civil rights and against the Vietnam war, and a universal paean to protest and resistance.

At bottom, Zinn, like all humanitarian radicals, has nurtured throughout his life “an indignation against the bullies of the world, those who used wealth or military might or social status to keep others down,” he writes.

Zinn defies chronological and autobiographical order and jumps right into the action...