Zinn grew up in the immigrant slums of Brooklyn where he worked in shipyards in his late teens. He saw combat duty as an Air Force bombardier in World War II, and afterward received his doctorate in history from Columbia University.

His first book, "La Guardia in Congress" was an Albert Beveridge Prize winner. In 1956, when he moved with his wife and children to Atlanta to become chairman of the History Department at Spelman College. His experiences there led to his second book, "The Southern Mystique."

As a participant/observer in the founding activities of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he spent time in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, and wrote "SNCC: The New Abolitionists." As part of the American Heritage Series, he edited "New Deal Thought," and anthology. His fifth and sixth books, "Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal," and "Disobediance and Democracy," were written in the midst of his participation in intense antiwar activity. In 1968, he flew to Hanoi with Father Daniel Berrigan to receive the first three American fliers released by North Vietnam. Two years later came "The Politics of History." In 1972 he edited, with Noam Chomsky, "The Pentagon Papers: Critical Essays." In 1973 appeared "Postwar America," and in 1974 he edited "Justice in Everyday Life."

In 1989 came his epic masterpiece, "A People's History of the United States", "a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited politically and economically and whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories." (from the Library Journal). Other recent books by Zinn include "Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology" and "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times."

Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University, Zinn has also written three plays, "Emma", "Daughter of Venus", and "Marx in Soho."