Matt Damon Brings Howard Zinn to Life

FrontPage Magazine/  Mark Tapson Bio

Fourteen years ago in his breakout performance as an arrogant young genius in the movie Good Will Hunting, actor Matt Damon’s character sneered at his Boston psychiatrist for “surrounding yourself with all the wrong f**kin’ books. You wanna read a real history book, read Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. That book’ll f**kin’ knock you on your ass.”

That was from a script Damon himself had written (with fellow actor Ben Affleck, with Oscar-winning rewrite assistance from famed screenwriter William Goldman). It reflected Damon’s own real-life admiration for self-proclaimed radical historian Howard Zinn, whom he is still actively promoting today, almost two years to the day after Zinn’s death.

Damon went on to co-produce a documentary entitled “The People Speak,” based on A People’s History and Voices of a People’s History of the United States, which Zinn co-edited with anti-war-on-terror socialist Anthony Arnove. Other Hollywood folk like Josh Brolin, Marisa Tomei, Morgan Freeman, Viggo Mortensen, Rosario Dawson, and Kerry Washington lent their star power to it for a History Channel premiere back in 2009. More >>