01 November 2012

RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Historian Martin Duberman on 'Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left'

Martin Duberman. Image from Lambda Literary.

Rag Radio podcast:
Historian Martin Duberman discusses
his new biography of Howard Zinn

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / November 1, 2012

Historian Martin Duberman discussed his new book, Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left, on Rag Radio, Friday, October 26. Rag Radio, a syndicated radio show, is produced in the studios of KOOP-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas.

You can listen to the interview here.


Martin Duberman is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School, where he founded and for a decade directed the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies. The author of more than 20 books, Duberman has won a Bancroft Prize and been a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in New York City.

Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left, is the first major biography of the late social activist and author of "A People’s History of the United States." Zinn was a larger-than-life figure who stood at the center of the key social movements of the 20th century.

Duberman was the first scholar to gain access to Zinn’s personal papers after he died in 2010. Duberman provides a character study of an individual whose complex personal life was sometimes at odds with the change he effected.

Noam Chomsky wrote that Howard Zinn "changed the consciousness of a generation.” Harvard University History Professor Timothy Patrick McCarthy wrote that “Martin Duberman is America’s most daring and creative living biographer.”

Duberman was also the author of the dual biography, A Saving Remnant: The Radical Lives of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, published in 2011 by The New Press. Duberman and McReynolds were our guests on Rag Radio on March 5, 2011.


Rag Radio features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history. It is broadcast live Fridays at 2 p.m. (CDT) on KOOP, 91.7-FM in Austin, and streamed live on the Internet, and is rebroadcast on WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA., on Sunday mornings at 10 (EDT).

The show, which has aired since September 2009, is produced in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

The host and producer of Rag Radio is Rag Blog editor and long-time alternative journalist Thorne Dreyer, a pioneer of the Sixties underground press movement. Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

All Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts and can be listened two at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio can be contacted at ragradio@koop.org.

Coming up on Rag Radio:
THIS FRIDAY, November 2, 2012: Jan Reid Author of Let The People In: The Life and Times of Ann Richards."
November 9, 2012: Our Berlin correspondent David MacBryde reports on Germany and the Eurozone.
November 16, 2012: Singer-Songwriter Guy Forsyth.

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