- Zinn Education Project https://www.zinnedproject.org/themes/world-historyglobal-studies/ Free lessons and resources for teaching people’s history in K-12 classrooms. For use with books by Howard Zinn and others on multicultural, women’s, and labor history. Fri, 01 Sep 2023 17:47:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 191940966 Barefoot Gen: The Bombing of Hiroshima As Seen Through the Eyes of a Young Boy https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/barefoot-gen https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/barefoot-gen#comments Wed, 15 Dec 2004 19:35:14 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=944 Film. By Geneon; directed by Mori Masaki. 1992. 170 minutes.
A story about the devastating effects of war on everyday life.

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Opening in the rundown city of Hiroshima, we witness the events leading up to the bombing through the eyes of Gen, a young boy growing up in post-war Japan. Fortunately when the bomb detonates, Gen is shielded by a stone wall. Others are not so lucky and are burned to death instantly by the 5000 degree heat flash. As Gen runs home to find his family, he sees victims of the bomb blast staggering around shocked and helpless in the rubble, their skin burnt and melting.

When Gen reaches home he finds that his house has collapsed, trapping his father, brother and sister in the wreckage. Pulling his pregnant mother to safety, Gen watches as the rest of his family are burnt alive.

What follows is a night-marish journey into the unimaginable horrors of atomic war and the struggle to survive in a place that has been destroyed by the most devastating device ever conceived by man. [Producer’s description.]


As teachers know, some classroom materials invariably work, no matter the group of students. Barefoot Gen is one of them.

Barefoot Gen, a Japanese animated feature film, tells the story of Gen (pronounced with a hard “G”), a young boy who, along with his mother, survives the bombing of Hiroshima.

The story chronicles their struggles as they try to rebuild their lives from the bomb’s ashes. It is based on the critically acclaimed, semi-autobiographical Japanese comic book series Hadashi no Gen, by Keiji Nakazawa. Both the comic strip and the feature film oppose the Japanese government’s actions during World War II and include criticism of the intense poverty and suffering forced onto the Japanese people by their government’s war effort.

In the lesson, Haiku and Hiroshima: Teaching About the Atomic Bomb, Wayne Au describes how he introduces the film to high school students and how he follows up with haiku written by survivors of the bombings and students’ own writing.

Trailer

Produced by Geneon. Japanese/English subtitles.

Check your streaming platforms to find Barefoot Gen.

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History Textbooks: “Theirs” and “Ours”: A Rebellion or a War of Independence? https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/history-textbooks/ Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:23:43 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=1417 Teaching Activity. By John DeRose. Rethinking Schools. 4 pages.
Analysis of textbook passages from different countries, videos and books are used to explore different perspectives about the same event in history, i.e. "Philippine-American War" vs. "War of Philippine Independence."

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History Textbooks: “Theirs” and “Ours”: A Rebellion or a War of Independence? (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's HistoryWas it the “Philippine-American War” or the “War of Philippine Independence”? Was Emilio Aguinaldo a “rebel leader” or the “President” who led the Filipinos in the war against the United States?

For the past 12 years, I have tried to help my 11th-grade students view U.S. history critically from multiple perspectives.

While I use primary sources and other historians’ interpretations, I continually search for sources that go beyond the mostly benign representations of U.S. actions overseas, which have dominated textbooks for generations. This is not just academic; how students regard U.S. conduct in the past influences how they view the exercise of U.S. power today.

Therefore, when I read Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward’s book, History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History, I was excited to find textbook passages from countries that could help my students recognize that their texts are not impartial.

Recently, I asked students to compare an account from their U.S. history textbook on the Philippine-American War with a Filipino textbook passage from History Lessons about the same event — called the War of Philippine Independence in the Filipino book.

In order to help students unravel the perspectives presented in both nations’ textbook accounts, I first taught lessons that offered students a range of viewpoints on this event. First, students watched the video, Savage Acts. This documentary depicts U.S. racism to help explain the expansionist policies to “civilize” the Philippines at the turn of the century. For instance, the video describes how 1,200 Filipinos were brought to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and placed on exhibit. One American observer said that she saw “the wild barbaric Igorots who eat dogs and are so vicious that they are fenced in. They thirst for blood and are the lowest type of civilization I saw.” With the prevalence of these racist attitudes, it is not surprising to hear U.S. Col. Frederick Funston say that the Filipinos “are as a rule an illiterate, semi-savage people who are waging war not against tyranny but against Anglo-Saxon order and decency.”

Emilio Aguinaldo (ca. 1898)

Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo (ca. 1898)

Savage Acts points out that after Filipinos expelled the Spanish, they established their own independent government. But instead of recognizing Filipino independence, the United States annexed the Philippines and sent troops to crush any resistance. The video examines these events from multiple points of view ranging from antiwar activists like Mark Twain to supporters of imperialism like President William McKinley and describes the camps where U.S. soldiers tortured Filipinos.

After the video, I gave students eight primary source documents representing an array of perspectives on U.S. annexation. These included speech and article excerpts from McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, Sen. Alfred Beveridge, labor leader Samuel Gompers, the “Colored Citizens of Boston,” Filipino leader Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipina activist named Clemencia Lopez, and a Filipino newspaper.

I divided the class into eight groups and assigned each group one of the packet’s eight documents. Students wrote summaries and their own assessment of the strengths and limits of the document’s perspective. Then, one student from each group represented the perspective from his or her group’s assigned document in a panel discussion. (I borrowed this lesson idea from the website of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, the organization that created the Savage Acts video. Visit the American Social History Project for all the documents.)

Lesson originally published by Rethinking Schools | Zinn Education Project

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Hunger on Trial: An Activity on the Irish Potato Famine and Its Meaning for Today https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/hunger-on-trial/ https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/hunger-on-trial/#comments Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:27:09 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=1422 Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 5 pages.
A trial role play helps students reflect on responsibility for the deaths of Irish peasants during the so-called potato famine.

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A mural on Whiterock Road in Belfast commemorating the Irish famine. The mural reads "Britain's genocide by starvation. Ireland's holocaust, 1845-1849. Over 1,500,000 deaths."

A mural on Whiterock Road in Belfast commemorating the Irish famine. Source: Public domain

Somewhere back in school I learned about the 19th-century Irish Potato Famine: More than a million people starved to death when blight hit Ireland’s main crop, the potato. The famine meant tremendous human suffering and triggered a mass migration, largely to the United States. All this is true. But it is also incomplete and misses key facts that link past and present global hunger.

Beginning in 1845, blight did begin to hit Ireland’s potato crop, which was the staple food of the Irish poor. But all other crops were unaffected. And during the worst famine years, British-ruled Ireland continued to export vast amounts of food. . . In approaching the potato famine in my global studies class, I wanted students to see that hunger is less a natural phenomenon than it is a political and economic phenomenon.

"The Ejectment," The Illustrated London News, Dec. 16, 1848. See more images at the Views of the Famine website.

“The Ejectment,” The Illustrated London News, Dec. 16, 1848. See more images at the Views of the Famine website.

In 19th-century Ireland, food was a commodity, distributed largely to those who had the means to pay for it. Like today, the capitalist market ruled, and commerce trumped need. According to the Institute for Food and Development Policy/Food First, “Enough food is available to provide at least 4.3 pounds of food per person a day worldwide: two and a half pounds of grain, beans, and nuts, about a pound of fruits and vegetables, and nearly another pound of meat, milk, and eggs.” And yet, according to the organization Bread for the World, 852 million people in the world are hungry, and every day 16,000 children die of hunger-related causes. The main issue was and continues to be: Who controls the land and for what purposes?


Lesson originally published by Rethinking Schools | Zinn Education ProjectPeople's Curriculum for the EarthThis lesson was published by Rethinking Schools in the “Feeding the Children” (Summer 2006) issue.

For more lessons like “Hunger on Trial: An Activity on the Irish Potato Famine and Its Meaning for Today,” order the Rethinking Schools book, A People’s Curriculum for the Earth.


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Empire or Humanity?: What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me about the American Empire https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/empire-or-humanity/ Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:37:09 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=1437 Article for Teachers and High School Students. By Howard Zinn. 4 pages.
An essay which raises questions about the justifications for empire building and imperialism.

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Empire or Humanity?: What the Classroom Didn't Teach Me about the American Empire (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's HistoryWith an occupying army waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with military bases and corporate bullying in every part of the world, there is hardly a question anymore of the existence of an American Empire. Indeed, the once fervent denials have turned into a boastful, unashamed embrace of the idea.

However, the very idea that the United States was an empire did not occur to me until after I finished my work as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force in the Second World War, and came home. Even as I began to have second thoughts about the purity of the “Good War,” even after being horrified by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even after rethinking my own bombing of towns in Europe, I still did not put all that together in the context of an American “Empire.”


Lesson originally published by Rethinking Schools | Zinn Education ProjectOriginally published in Rethinking Schools, Summer 2008, Volume 22.


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Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/caribbean-connections-dominican-republic/ Thu, 30 Nov 2006 16:53:36 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=2817 Book — Non-fiction and Fiction. Edited by Gallin, Glasser, Santana. 2005. 250 pages.
Reader-friendly overview of the history, politics, and culture of the fourth largest Latino community in the United States.

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ccdrAn informative collection of essays, oral histories, poetry, fiction, analysis, interviews, primary documents, beautifully illustrated timelines, maps and interactive and interdisciplinary teaching aids on the history, politics, and culture of the fourth largest Latino community in the United States.

Authors include Julia Alvarez, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Diaz, Rhina P. Espaillat, Pedro Mir, Josefina Baez, and Sherezada Vicioso (Chiqui).

Ideal as background text for students or book groups reading literature by Dominican authors, communities with Dominican-American students, and for everyone interested in this Caribbean country with its rather long history of U.S. involvement.

The readings are organized into the following sections:

  • Geography, History, Economy;
  • Migration and the Dominican Diaspora;
  • Shaping A Dominican Identity: Language, Race, and Gender;
  • Haitian-Dominican Relations;
  • The National Goes Global: Dominican Music and Baseball.

Award-winning author Julia Alvarez wrote the foreword. In it she said,

…And so you, reader, are now holding one end of a string of many voices. I can’t help but hope in these times of division and wars and rumors of wars, that the string played out in books such as this one might indeed provide lifelines. In place of glib sound bites and the violence of chauvinistically severing connections, dividing people into us and them, we can posit connection. By reading, by listening, by speaking in turn, we can create a string of understanding that circles the world.

Table of contents: English edition and Spanish edition.

Editors: Anne Gallin, Ruth Glasser, and Jocelyn Santana with Patricia R. Pessar.

A Spanish language companion is available, Conexiones Caribenas: La Republica Dominica.

Faculty Advisors: Julia Alvarez, Paul Austerlitz, Ginetta E.B. Candelario, Daisy Cocco de Filippis, Junot Díaz, Jorge Duany, Rosario Espinal, Ramona Hernández, Peggy Levitt, Samuel Martínez, Patricia R. Pessar, Ydanis Rodríguez, Rob Ruck, Ernesto Sagás, Andrew Schrank, Silvio Torres-Saillant

Funded by the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies at the Yale Center for International and Area Studies; the U.S. Department of Education, through its International Research and Studies and National Resource Centers programs; and the Connecticut Collaborations for Teaching the Arts and Humanities grant program, a partnership of the Connecticut Department of Higher Education and the Connecticut Humanities Council.

ISBN: 1878554190 | Teaching for Change

Related Resources

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez. It is November 25, 1960, and three sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas [The Butterflies].

In this historical novel, the voices of all four sisters Minerva, Patria, Mar a Teresa, and the survivor, Ded speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez ‘s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human cost of political oppression. [Publisher’s description.] The novel does not say much about the role of the United States, so Caribbean Connections: The Dominican Republic is a vital companion resource.

The Hero’s Human Heart. Lesson for In the Time of the Butterflies by S. J. Childs in Rethinking Schools.

In the Time of the Butterflies. Film directed by Mariano Barroso. 2000. PG-13. Starring Salma Hayek.

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. November 25. By resolution 54/134 of 17 December 1999, the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and invited governments, international organizations and NGOs to organize activities designed to raise public awareness of the problem on that day. Women’s activists have marked 25 November as a day against violence since 1981. This date came from the brutal assassination in 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, on orders of Dominican ruler Rafael Trujillo (1930-1961). On 20 December 1993 the General Assembly, by resolution 48/104, adopted the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women.

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Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/rethinking-globalization/ Sat, 13 Apr 2002 17:33:22 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=3376 Teaching Guide. Edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson. 2002. 402 pages.
An extensive collection of readings and source material on critical global issues, plus teaching ideas, lesson plans, and rich collections of resources for classroom teachers.

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rglobalThis comprehensive book from Rethinking Schools helps teachers raise critical issues with students in grades 4 — 12 about the increasing globalization of the world’s economies and infrastructures, and the many different impacts this trend has on our planet and those who live here.

Rethinking Globalization offers an extensive collection of readings and source material on critical global issues, plus teaching ideas, lesson plans, and rich collections of resources for classroom teachers.

See the Table of Contents with readings from the book.

Rethinking Globalization is a breathtakingly rich collection of essays, photos, cartoons, poems providing an extraordinary one-volume education on wealth, poverty, corporate power, and popular resistance in the contemporary world. . . I can think of no other book that teaches so much, so engagingly. —Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

This volume moves us past provincialism and toward the hard work of educating students and teachers to be active and responsible global citizens. This is a simultaneously wonderful and disturbing text — exactly what we need right now. —Gloria Ladson-Billings, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of The Dreamkeepers.

Having been a high school teacher in Japan, one resource that I have returned to repeatedly is Rethinking Globalization. [The book] offers an extensive collection of readings and source material on critical global issues. Through numerous role plays, interviews, poems, stories, background readings, cartoons, and hands-on teaching activities, the book offers a memorable introduction to the forces that are shaping the future of our world. —Mitch Teberg, MA

ISBN: 9780942961287 | Rethinking Schools

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What’s Up? South! World Map https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/whats-up-south-world-map/ https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/whats-up-south-world-map/#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2002 14:49:20 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=4475 Poster.
This full-color map flips the script, leading the viewer to re-examine what's on top and why.

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whatsupThis south-at-the-top map is a great educational tool. It challenges basic notions of ”up” and ”down.” True ”up” from our standpoint on the earth, is away from the center, and the earth in space has no inherent up or down. To emphasize this point, this map includes an inset, which shows global views from various angles. In addition, other inset maps show examples of a variety of projections with notes on their merits and limitations.

This map is no longer in print. Learn more here.

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Globalization: A View from Below https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/globalization-a-view-from-below/ Sun, 20 Sep 2009 04:50:22 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=5257 Article in PDF. By Jean-Bertrand Aristide. 5 pages.
An essay on the impact of globalization, with the story of Haiti as an example.

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haiti-school-feeding-6Our planet is entering the new century with fully 1.3 billion people living on less than one dollar a day. Three billion people, or half the population of the world, live on less than two dollars a day. Yet this same planet is experiencing unprecedented economic growth. The statistics that describe the accumulation of wealth in the world are mind-boggling. From where we sit, the most staggering statistics of all are those that reflect the polarization of this wealth. In 1960 the richest 20% of the world’s population had 70% of the world’s wealth, today they have 86% of the wealth. In 1960 the poorest 20% of the world’s population had just 2.3% of the wealth of the world. Today this has shrunk to just barely 1%.

Imagine that the five fingers of your hand represent the world’s population. The hand has $100 to share. Today the thumb, representing the richest 20% of the world’s population, has $86 for itself. The little finger has just $1. The thumb is accumulating wealth with breathtaking speed and never looking back. The little finger is sinking deeper into economic misery. The distance between them grows larger every day.

Behind the crisis of dollars there is a human crisis: among the poor, immeasurable human suffering; among the others, the powerful, the policymakers, a poverty of spirit which has made a religion of the market and its invisible hand. A crisis of imagination so profound that the only measure of value is profit, the only measure of human progress is economic growth.

We have not reached the consensus that to eat is a basic human right. This is an ethical crisis. This is a crisis of faith.

Teaching Ideas

Have students hold out one of their hands and use their fingers to illustrate global inequality, as Aristide suggests in the reading. Student volunteers might go to the front of the class to represent the “hand of wealth.”

Jean-Bertrand Aristide

In the reading, Jean-Bertrand Aristide employs several metaphors to get us to picture global reality: hands, the machine, the market, a morgue table. Encourage students to brainstorm additional metaphors that express important insights about globalization and to complete metaphorical drawings.

Discuss: Why couldn’t Haitian rice farmers compete with U.S. rice farmers? Is destruction of Third World agriculture and industries an inevitable consequence of free trade? Why or why not? Elsewhere in Aristide’s book, Eyes of the Heart — from which this reading is drawn — he describes a “third way” for poor countries like Haiti. What might that third way look like?

 

Lesson originally published by Rethinking Schools | Zinn Education Project

 

 

Reprinted from the introduction to Rethinking Globalization, a Rethinking Schools publication.

 

More Resources

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Robeson in Spain https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/robeson-in-spain Sat, 22 Apr 2006 16:51:54 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=5765 Book — Non-fiction. By The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives. 2009. 25 pages.
Booklet in graphic novel format on Paul Robeson's involvement in the Spanish Civil War.

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image_preview“The artist must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery. I have made my choice. I had no alternative.”—Paul Robeson

Download 28-page classroom friendly booklet called Robeson in Spain.

Paul Robeson’s concerns about fascism in the 1930s — military aggression, racial injustice, civilian bombings, and forced population displacement — remain issues of our own times. Seven decades later, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA)  magazine, The Volunteer, published a 28-page booklet in graphic novel format titled Robeson in Spain, detailing Robeson’s activism and dedication to the Spanish cause. It is ALBA’s hope that this work of art, history, and research can be embraced and appreciated by students of history and by the public as a way to convey the progressive ideals of Paul Robeson and the volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

By the mid-1930s, Paul Robeson had achieved international acclaim as an actor, singer, and public personality who criticized racism.  The rise and expansion of fascism in Germany and Italy and other parts of the world intensified his concerns about the precarious state of democracy, freedom, and social justice. After the Spanish Civil War began in 1936, Robeson threw his support behind the elected government. “The artist must take sides,” he announced. He sang often to raise funds for children displaced by the war and appealed for assistance to the Spanish Republic.

In 1938, he and his wife, Eslanda, went to Spain to learn directly about the fascist threat and to support the soldiers defending democracy. Three years later, after Spain had fallen to the pro-fascist dictator, General Francisco Franco and World War II had begun, the American survivors of the Spanish Civil War made Paul Robeson an honorary member of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

The “Robeson In Spain” project also includes two lesson plans, multimedia primary resources, and an extensive bibliography to facilitate the teaching and learning about the Spanish Civil War and the commitment of men and women from other countries to preserve democratic ideals. [Description from ALBA website.]

Published in The Volunteer (June, 2009) by The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA).

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The Good Fight: The Abraham Lincoln Brigade and the Spanish Civil War https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/good-fight https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/good-fight#comments Mon, 06 Sep 2004 13:56:33 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=6194 Film. By Mary Dore, Noel Buckner, and Sam Sills. 1984. 98 minutes.
Documentary narrated by Studs Terkel on the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.

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thegoodfightThis documentary presents the experiences of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, comprised of American volunteers who fought with the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. Using archival footage and interviews with survivors, the filmmakers explore the war’s context, including the rise of Fascism and the perils of reaching Spain for volunteers, as well as the limited training, heavy responsibilities thrust on the very young, deprivations of a soldier’s life, lack of material, and the horrible rates of casualties. This film is a good introduction to the issues and participants surrounding the Spanish Civil War.

Narrated by Studs Terkel, The Good Fight explores a significant gap in our history through its use of newsreels, photographs, interviews with Lincoln veterans and Depression-era music. The eleven surviving veterans of the war who appear in this tough, stirring film share a common pride in their sacrifices of seventy years ago when the rise of world fascism crushed the spirit of democracy in a tragic rehearsal for World War II.

Read more about the Lincoln Brigade by filmmaker Sam Sills.

Endorsements

“There was a moment in this century when the simple word, ‘Spain’ brought a surge of emotion and the quietly uttered phrase ‘Lincoln Brigade’ a thrill of recognition. The Good Fight is an extraordinary recapturing of that lost moment. One can too easily forget, in a decade of despair, what this film reminds us of: that in every time, however, grim, there are men and women of passion and courage on whom one can count.” Howard Zinn, Professor Emeritus, Boston University

“The Good Fight makes history dance. This unusual documentary is a reminder that brave people are the conscience of any generation. It stirs pride at what citizens who take American values seriously have done and still might do.” Boston Globe Editorial

What the Critics Say

“Just about the most stirring documentary you’ll ever see. . . . What comes over most strongly is the resolute idealism of those who fought, and did so in a way that seems impossibly heroic in these unheroic times.” Time Out, New York

“One of the Ten Best Films of 1984.” Stewart Klein, Metromedia TV

“Of all the films I’ve seen while reviewing films for The Nation, The Good Fight is the one you should be sure not to miss. Informative but not ponderous, technically skilled but not slick, heart-stirring but not maudlin, The Good Fight is a triumph . . . “ Katha Politt, The Nation

“This excellent chronicle narrated by Studs Terkel is nothing less than a rousing history of the American political right, left and center for the last half-century.” Carrie Rickey, Boston Herald

“Inspiring.” Vincent Canby, New York Times

“This unusually engaging historical documentary thus also serves as a moving tribute to a remarkable group of men and women. By making their heroism understandable in human terms, The Good Fight also encourages the belief that it is a trait which each of us, at our best, would posses.” Gary Crowdus, Cineaste

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