The Essential Staughton Lynd

As a collection of original, unpublished essays, this book focuses on one of America’s greatest historians: Staughton Lynd. “The essential” Professor Lynd is the existential hero known as a “guerrilla historian” committed to social justice, political activism and building a better world. What is essential about this legendary historian-activist? What are his fundamental and key positions? The essays in this collection clearly answer these questions. In fact, this book is an edited collection of Staughton Lynd’s texts over a wide range of issues as a moral model of scholarly activism. They are all here: Lynd’s autobiographical analysis of his personal evolution as a guerrilla historian dedicated to radical social change, his revealing evaluation of his comrade Howard Zinn, his work with his wife and partner Alice in defending human rights in the American prison system, and their life-long practice of “accompaniment” as activists who became companions with the poor and oppressed.