Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn was an American historian, playwright, and social activist. He was a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote more than twenty books, including his bestselling and influential A Peoples History of the United States. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, A Young Peoples History of the United States.

Zinn was born to a Jewish immigrant family in Brooklyn on August 24, 1922. His father, Eddie Zinn, born in AustriaHungary, emigrated to the U.S. with his brother Samuel before the outbreak of World War I. Howards mother, Jenny Zinn, emigrated from the Eastern Siberian city of Irkutsk. His parents first became acquainted as workers at the same factory. His father worked as a ditch digger and window cleaner during the Depression. His father and mother ran a neighborhood candy store for a brief time, barely getting by. For many years his father was in the waiters union and worked as a waiter for weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Source: Wikipedia