Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology
In these informal, challenging essays that link the personal to the political, Zinn ( A People's History of the United States ) aims to shake complacency, to challenge what he calls "American orthodoxies" or received opinions about history and government. He charges that Machiavellian tactics have dominated policies of presidents in their pursuit of "national security interests." Calling the American economic system "shamefully wasteful and unjust," the Boston University political scientist urges a "real war on poverty" and on pollution, a turnaround in national priorities away from massive military spending. Recognition that the Soviet Union is a police state, he believes, should not lead us to embrace "fanatical anticommunism" or to justify the U.S. government's control over other countries. He argues that there are no just wars, accuses the major media of slavishness to government-business control and knocks social theories that resort to "human nature" to explain war and class inequities.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.