Books

The Bomb

  • Jan 27, 2021
  • Howard Zinn
  • 577 responses.

The Bomb 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 shor

  • Title: The Bomb
  • Author: Howard Zinn
  • ISBN: 9780872865099
  • Page: 500
  • Format: Paperback

    • 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 transforminAs 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.

    • ☆ The Bomb || ↠ PDF Read by ↠ Howard Zinn
      500 Howard Zinn
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      Posted by:Howard Zinn
      Published :2020-01-20T21:00:39+00:00

    About "Howard Zinn"

    1. Howard Zinn

      Howard Zinn was a historian, playwright, and social activist He was a shipyard worker and a bombardier with the U.S Army Air Force in Europe during the Second World War before he went to college under the GI Bill and received his Ph.D from Columbia University Zinn taught at Spelman College and Boston University, and was a visiting professor at the University of Paris and the University of Bologna He received the Thomas Merton Award, the Eugene V Debs Award, the Upton Sinclair Award, and the Lannan Literary Award He lived in Auburndale, Massachusetts.

    577 Comments

    1. My grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project.He had lost a lot of cartilage in his knees playing football in college (we're talking leatherheads hereon man football) and was, therefore, unable to fight in WWII. He managed to get a government job as a pipefitter down in Oak Ridge, TN and was told he was helping the war effort. He had never heard of Oak Ridge (no one did; it was a secret location then, not on any maps), but he moved my grandmother and two of my uncles down there and began workin [...]

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    2. Back when I dreamed of going to law school, entering the world of politics, and becoming the first woman President of the U.S I was among the horde of protestors in Washington for the November 1969 march against the Vietnam War. I was a college freshman at a university in D.C. When I returned to my dorm, a friend told me, "Your grandmother called; you'd better call her right away. She sounded frantic." So I called and listened to this panic-stricken voice saying, "Thank G-d you're all right. I h [...]

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    3. "Though the great American historian Howard Zinn is no longer with us, his memory lives on with this excellent personal essay on the subject of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. . . . His book is a shining example of the Constitutionally protected ability to question what we have been told, and should be required reading for all patriotic Americans."—Black Heart Magazine"It's my favorite. . . . He wrote the book to remind himself and to remind us that anybody can throw the wrench i [...]

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    4. The Bomb is a combination of older essays written by Howard Zinn which looks at the morality of the mass aerial bombings of civilian dense targets. Zinn was himself a bombardier during World War Two and spent most of his Post War life as a strong anti-war voice, both a historian and activist. Inside this brief book he cites as his main examples for the bloody futility of aerial bombing as being the destruction of Hiroshima and the pointless devastation of the French City of Royan both in 1945.Zi [...]

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    5. Comprised of two previously published essays on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the French village of Royan at the end of World War Two plus a new Introduction by the author. Both attacks were justified and defended as necessary in bringing the wars with Germany and Japan to an end. Yet, as Zinn and others have shown, not everyone was in agreement with that. More likely the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were done to show the Soviets that we had the ultimate weapon. On the incendiar [...]

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    6. "More and more in our time, the mass production of massive evil requires an enormously complicated division of labor. No one is positively responsible for the horror that ensues. But everyone is negatively responsible, because anyone can can throw a wrench into the machineryIt is the immediate victims (or tomorrow's) who have the greatest need, and the fewest wrenches. They must use their bodies (which may explain why rebellion is a rare phenomenon). This may suggest to those of us who have a bi [...]

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    7. Written from a man we all know, a bombardier himself in WWII, and in my opinion one of the greatest people of our time.If you can read this book without crying, or at the very minimum without being profoundly moved (if not totally disgusted) YOU HAVE NO HUMANITY.Zinn's thorough research and countless testimonies of people, and administrators in our government show Truman and Churchill to be the depraved monsters they were. He also shows how deception and racism conditioned the minds of Americans [...]

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    8. A great book and a concise review of the context in which the unnecessary bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki occurred. As usual it comes down to hubris, ego, revenge, sadism etc. When everyone is "just following orders" things can, and often do, go terribly wrong. And then you remember that those little bombs were nothing compared to what we have stockpiled all over the place today.

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    10. These two short essays are ostensibly about bombings in WWII (Hiroshima and Royan, respectively), and the accounts are concise and well-researched, as well as eloquent and moving. But, really, these essays chart the transformation of Zinn's consciousness and the awakening of his moral conviction. A beautiful parting gift before his death and a message that is sadly relevant years later. Still, there is hope. One of my favorite quotes: "Against the claims of a violent 'human nature' there is enor [...]

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    12. Zinn presents us with a touching vignette of nuclear disarmament and peace advocacy. You should certainly read this if you are a fan of Zinn, but the information it presents is fairly well known.

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    13. My interest in the subject was awakened after visiting the National WWII Museum in New Orleans and hearing extensive personal accounts. The museum does not invoke controversy over acts committed but merely states casualties and glorifies the war effort with its exhausted memorabilia. I'm not surprised any of Zinn's work isn't sold in the gift shop. Instead it's adorned with countless Rosie the Riveter souvenirs and some Holocaust survivor artwork on the side. The Hiroshima & Nagasaki section [...]

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    15. City Lights Open Media Series has done the U.S. people a service in publishing historian Howard Zinn’s The Bomb, a two-part pamphlet that is a contribution to critical thinking about war, and about one of its modern manifestations, that of high-altitude bombing. Part 1 is Zinn’s essay on the atomic bombings of Japan and part 2 is about his own wartime participation in and later retrieval of the history of the Allied napalm-bombing of a French town, Royan. Both essays could be read in less th [...]

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    16. There are historians that are contented to tell history as accurate as they can assimilate it and others that want to disrupt it, dig in it, turn it upside down, and make it tell us what to do and what not to do if we are to avoid repeating the past mistakes and suffering the its perils. Howard Zinn belongs to the second group, and he does what he does brilliantly.I have enjoyed this book immensely, first because I read it immediately after finishing Hersey's Hiroshima (which Zinn quotes several [...]

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    17. Zinn's personal experiences as an Air Force pilot in the second World War seemed to give him unique insight into the forces that compel people to tolerate something as savage and murderous as modern warfare. His account of the devastation the atom bomb visited on the countless innocent victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the way the media cooperated with the government to keep this reality silent in the US for 65 years now makes a compelling case for never again entrusting politicians with the [...]

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    18. A critical look at the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by author and historian Howard Zinn who served as a bombardier in Europe during WWII. The short book is comprised of two essays, one focused on Japan, the other his own experience with napalming the French town of Royan. Be sure to read the preface by Greg Ruggiero and the introduction by Zinn, completed shortly before his death."Howard loved small acts of rebellion. He loved them because it's through small acts that all big change begins [...]

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    19. I can't remember the last time I finished a book in one day. This was a quick read indeed.As usual, he does a very good job backing up his point of view with a combination of facts, personal accounts of his own and others, and some basic moral/philosophical stuff. He did a great job of showing that Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as many bombings around Europe, most especially a raid in which he participated upon Royan, were unnecessary and brutal massive acts based on vengeance and disturbingly [...]

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    20. What on earth could justify the use of an atomic bomb or the devastation of thousands of innocent lives?In The Bomb, Zinn considers the consequences of using the atomic bomb in WWII. Short and to the point, Zinn argues that there was little justification for using the bomb considering that Japan was about to surrender, that the damage caused by it was unusually cruel, and that using it basically contradicts any claim that we were using to prove our moral superiority. The second half of the book [...]

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    21. A simple book with great meaning. A return to the Open Media Pamphlet Series that I haven't read from in some time. The Bomb starts with a discussion about the use of the atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and how, even known at the time, they were not necessary to win the war. The Japanese, in fact (but whose facts are we looking at? Maybe Zinn's reading of history/events is a bit off.), were on the verge of surrender and that, possibly, the bombs were used on the Japanese but the target [...]

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    22. If you ever find yourself looking for a well-reasoned philosophical stance against war, this may be just the thing. Zinn's argument is that in war (at least modern day war), it is the innocent who bear the brunt of the conflict. If war were the leaders of two hostile countries in a fight-to-the-finish cage match, then I might be all for it. But as it stands right now, the leaders decide what is worth dying for (liberty, patriotism, the motherland, what-have-you), they define what those terms mea [...]

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    23. This is a depressing book for an American to read. Zinn does an excellent job of making his case in a very succinct way. He basically says that we have lost our way and belong in the legions with the Romans versus the Greeks. While I find his conclusions to hold up well, I also know that most of the people I have known and do know have a set of ethics more aligned to the Greeks - more humanistic, more gracious. It is a difficult matter to get a national government and its leaders to adequately e [...]

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    24. I picked this up when I was at City Lights. It’s Howard Zinn’s last book. I didn’t know that he was a bombardier in a B-17 during WWII. This is the story of a raid he did on the French city of Royan. This was after the Germans had retreated. There was a small garrison left behind in Royan. He’s convinced that they would have surrendered any day, and that the only reason they bombed it was so that the Air Force could try out a new toy before the war ended. Wiping the city off the map didn [...]

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    25. Eh. From the publisher's writeup, I thought this would be more of a personal account of Zinn's experiences as a WWII bombardier, but he hardly reflects upon his own involvement and instead just lectures about why bombs are bad and the history surrounding the atomic bombs dropped in Japan (in a repurposed essay), and then about the history of the bombing he was personally involved with, in Royan, France. Not as interesting as I'd hoped.

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    26. Never read Zinn before, thought I'd give this small little book a shot. Turned out to be not bad at all (wish I could give it 3.75 stars) -- v persuasive anti-war, anti-bombing account of America's unnecessary decision to drop the atomic bombs in WWII, and the bureaucratic confusion that led to a fire bombing of a European village. Dinged it a star b/c it was too short to really get into (hmm how to not end on a preposition = it was too short into which to really get?).

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    27. Déshumanisation des populations, recherche de la gloire militaire : deux exemples parmi tant d'autres des raisons irrationnelles qui justifient les cruels bombardements de populations civiles. Un processus qu'essaye de démonter Howard Zinn, pas toujours de façon très cohérente (il manque parfois de s'égarer dans le fil de son essai), mais la sincérité de son engagement emporte facilement la conviction du lecteur.

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    28. Sample quote: "The strategic argument, which I and other historians have tried to answer with the evidence that there was no military necessity to use the bomb, is not enough. We need to confront the moral issue directly: faced with the horrors visited on hundreds of thousands of human beings by the massive bombings of modern warfare, can any military-strategic-political 'necessity' justify that?"

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    29. I learned that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't necessary, as Japan's surrender & peace-keeping plans were in the works, but the U.S. wanted to make a point, as well as test the new technology of atomic energy. As Zinn's last book before passing, I can understand why he felt the message was so important. Can any military-strategic-political "necessity" justify the indiscriminate murder and horror of nuclear weapons?

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    30. A lot of people don't appreciate Howard Zinn because of his political stances. And people are entitled to their opinions. When I read his books, particularly this one, I find it really hard to believe that some one could argue with his motives. War is awful and will continue to be so. This book is just one of Zinn's many reminders of that.

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