Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Zinn, Howard - Paul Buhle (review date 21 November 1994)

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Paul Buhle (review date 21 November 1994)

SOURCE: Buhle, Paul. “He Shall Not Be Moved.” Nation 259, no. 17 (21 November 1994): 623-25.

[In the following review of Zinn's autobiography, Buhle asserts that You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train is not Zinn's best work, but insists that it is nonetheless an engaging and entertaining book.]

I have always imagined that historian Howard Zinn somehow took part in the multitudinous radical movements of the 1840s-50s, campaigning for abolition, women's rights, dress reform and nonviolence. A rare Jew among Yankees and African-Americans, he would have commanded the platform with figures like Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass, held his own against hostile audiences and broadcast the prospects for universal freedom. Something about Zinn's style and bearing suggests the prophetic profile so common to radicals in those days and so rare in our own.

Actually, Zinn grew up in a...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Ralph Ellison (review date 8 November 1964)
   2. Allan R. Brockway (review date 25 November 1964)
   3. Martin B. Duberman (review date winter 1965)
   4. Margaret O'Brien (review date 5 February 1965)
   5. David P. Gauthier (review date November 1967)
   6. Carl Cohen (review date 2 December 1968)
   7. Simon Lazarus (review date 7 December 1968)
   8. Saville R. Davis (review date 16 January 1969)
   9. Courtney R. Sheldon (review date 30 July 1970)
   10. Ralph Stone (review date September 1970)
   11. Philip Green (review date December 1970)
   12. William L. O'Neill (review date June 1973)
   13. Peter Michelson (review date 28 July 1973)
   14. James T. Patterson (review date September 1973)
   15. Michael Kammen (review date 23 March 1980)
   16. Bruce Kuklick (review date 24 May 1980)
   17. Oscar Handlin (review date autumn 1980)
   18. Charles Glass (review date 24 October 1980)
   19. Erwin Knoll (review date February 1991)
   20. George Scialabba (review date 13 May 1991)
   21. Howard Zinn and Jack McEnany (interview date summer 1991)
   22. Michael Kazin (review date December 1991)
   23. Mark A. Graber (review date spring 1992)
   24. Paul Buhle (review date 21 November 1994)
   25. Matthew Rothschild (review date January 1995)
   26. Maurice Isserman (review date September 1995)
   27. Howard Zinn and David Barsamian (interview date July 1997)
   28. Harvey Wasserman (review date March 1998)
   29. Mariel Garza (review date July 1999)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright