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Product Description
Product Description
As a World War II combat soldier, Howard Zinn took part in the aerial bombing of Royan, France. Two decades later, he was invited to visit Hiroshima and meet survivors of the atomic attack. In this short and powerful book, Zinn offers his deep personal reflections and political analysis of these events, their consequences, and the profound influence they had in transforming him from an order-taking combat soldier to one of our greatest anti-authoritarian, antiwar historians. This book was finalized just prior to Zinn's passing in January 2010, and is published on the sixty-fifth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
About the Author
Howard Zinn served as an air force bombardier in WWII, and afterward received his doctorate in history from Columbia University. He is author of A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, and the million-selling classic, A People's History of the United States.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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4.3 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moral Responsibility Today, Aug 8 2010
By Levi H. Noir - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Bomb (Paperback)
One effect of the complex organizational structures that characterize modern life is the diffusion of responsibility. Great crimes are rarely authored by individuals. Instead, they are planned and executed by large associations of individuals, each of whom may feel as though he or she is simply responding to external pressures. Such crimes are facilitated by people's willingness, in the face of powerful incentives, to relinquish their moral autonomy and replace the good with the "good for us". Such tendencies can only be reversed if we have the moral courage and independence of mind to imagine the cost -- in human terms -- our collective undertakings exact from those on the other side: the other side of our crosshairs, of our borders, and of our communities.Zinn illustrates these basic truths by reviewing the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by Americans in the Second World War. This example is especially poignant for Zinn because he himself was a participant in these campaigns. Rather than sanctimonious finger-pointing, Zinn is interested in finding out how ordinary people like himself can become accessories to great crimes. His purpose is not to assign blame, but to remind us what moral and intellectual commitments we need to have if we would like our complex, interconnected world to be a decent one.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fine posthumous release that shares much of the lost wisdom of World War II, Aug 14 2010
By Midwest Book Review - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Bomb (Paperback)
A bomb is highly impersonal. The dropper can kill hundreds, and never see any of them. "The Bomb" is the memoir of Howard Zinn, a bomber in World War II who dropped bombs along the French countryside while campaigning against Germany. After learning of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Zinn now speaks out against the use of bombs and what it can do the warfare. Thoughtful and full of stories of an old soldier who regrets what he has done, "The Bomb" is a fine posthumous release that shares much of the lost wisdom of World War II.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The peril of blindly following orders, Nov 2 2010
By Joan Manning - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Bomb (Paperback)
When pilot Paul Tibbetts dropped the first atomic bomb he called it "Just something that had to be done." To the end of his life he basked in the admiration of those veterans who believed he saved their lives.When bombardier Howard Zinn was bombing Europe, he too didn't see the blood or hear the screams at 30,000 feet. Then he learned how the Hiroshima victims had suffered, and he began to question his own missions over Europe which seemed to have no clear purpose.
Zinn says, "The bombardiers of today are in the same position I was in, following orders without question, oblivious of the human consequences of our bombing." He deplores what he calls, "The mass production of massive evil" for which no one is positively responsible, and no one dares to question. He urges us to act on "what we feel and think, here and now, for human flesh and sense, against the abstractions of duty and obedience."
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