Howard Zinn's work titled "You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train' is yet another master piece after his famous best selling work "A People's History of the United States" with more than 5 million copies sold to date. Zinn's work 'You Can't Be Neutral On a Moving Train', though an autobiography, yet it details and highlights some of the most common issues facing our society in the current atmosphere. Some of these include Zinn's phisolosphy, ideas and works on such issues as civil rights, the Vietnam War, labor and social justice. Though it may appear that these issues have already been pointed out by equally numerous writers. Yet the manner in which Zinn has focused and brought to light the importance and validity of the same issues, even though we are already in the 21st century, makes the readers realize that these issues seem to have made little headway and still require the same zeal and dedication when they were first initiated in the decades of the 1960s and 1970s.

Career of the Author

The book reveals the earlier life times where the author was brought up as a son of a working poor class immigrants, with little access to education. Yet, it was the personal zeal and dedication that allowed him to work his way through by working in such places as the shipyard, and later joining the American Air Force as a bomber-pilot, during the 2nd World War. After the end of World War II, the author then somewhat realizes the value of human life and it is from here that his fight for the social change actually commences. Immediately after his return from the service of the Air Force, Zinn gets married and wins one of the most respected teaching positions, which also allowed him to get his doctoral degree. The importance to the career of education can be assessed from the very fact that when he enter the teaching profession, the first priority should have been his livelihood and source of earning for his newly started married life, instead he chose to purse his studies for a doctoral degree and a teaching profession. It was also the same teaching profession that led the historian to some of the crude and real life events that were taking place in the United States, and to which he would later on become an activist fighting and struggling to bring in social change, an end to discrimination and focusing on social justice.

Political and Social Beliefs of the Historian

As also reiterated in the above paragraphs, the historian was brought in a family of a working class poor immigrant, and though the concepts of social justice, discrimination, class struggle, and the over all social change may have been already present. Yet the same only emerged after his returned from his service from American Air Force, where the historian worked as a bomber pilot. This particular aspect can be evidenced from the author's joining of the unions, speaking, fighting and working for the rights of the minorities, and most important of all, fighting to bring an end to discrimination, an ill that had gripped the American era of the 1960s and 1970s. Though the primary profession chosen by the author was that of a teacher/professor, yet his involvement with the number of unions, minority groups, and radical thinkers, most of who fought for ending discrimination, and working for the social rights of the minorities also resulted in the author being jailed numerous times.

Professional Controversies In Which the Author Took Part In

Upon reading "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train", one may clearly observe that the original thoughts and philosophies more than contradicted with the professional life of the author. This particular element of controversies and getting caught up in the flow of the otherwise discriminated era, as well as the period in which social change was the need of the hour can perhaps be best witnessed in the comments of the author after his return from his service as a bomber pilot in World War II. One such event that clearly highlights this particular line of thinking is the orders for dropping napalm bombs on villages and towns in France where Germans soldiers were allegedly residing. In the said work, Zinn acknowledges that these acts of dropping napalm bombs left a great impact in the later part of his life, as he viewed the same acts as being 'unnecessary' at the time.

Thus, the readings of "You Can't Be Neutral On A Moving Train" truly provides a clear picture of what and how America as nation should have been, and the position she can gain amongst the community of nations, if only we as Americans 'let go of our fears and prejudices that have left us divided'.