Howard Zinn (August 24, 1922January 27, 2010) was an American historian and a veteran of World War II. He was chair of the history and social sciences department at Spelman College, and a political science professor at Boston University. Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including his best-selling and influential ''A People's History of the United States'' in 1980. In 2007, he published a version of it for younger readers, ''A Young People's History of the United States''.