Arnove, Anthony 1969-

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Arnove, Anthony 1969-

PERSONAL:

Born 1969. Education: Oberlin College, B.A.; Brown University, M.A., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brooklyn, NY.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist. Editor and publisher, South End Press.

MEMBER:

National Writers Union, International Socialist Organization.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Iraq under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War, South End Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000, revised edition, 2002.

(Editor, with Howard Zinn), Terrorism and War, Seven Stories Press (New York, NY), 2002.

(Editor, with Howard Zinn) Voices of a People's History of the United States, Seven Stories Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, New Press (New York, NY), 2006, revised edition, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Z Magazine, Nation, In These Times, Monthly Review, Mother Jones, Left Business Observer, Cineaste, New Politics, and the Financial Times. Contributor to anthology The Struggle for Palestine, Haymarket Books. Contributor to blog, End the War Tour. Editorial board member, International Socialist Review and Haymarket Books.

SIDELIGHTS:

A political activist and freelance journalist, Anthony Arnove is the editor and author of books critical of the sanctions against Iraq following the 1990 Gulf War and of the Iraq War which began in 2003. Working with author Howard Zinn, he has also edited two volumes of interviews and primary sources. His Iraq under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War describes the horrors and hardships of life in Iraq following the 1990 Gulf War, among them the fact that more than one million people, many of them children under five, died in the bombing and as a result of subsequent sanctions. The work includes the writings of several activist authors, among them Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, and Howard Zinn. Writing in Middle East, Fred Rhodes noted of the first edition that numerous individuals opposed to the sanctions "document the human, environmental and social toll" the punitive measures took on the Iraqi people. Reviewing the 2003 edition of the book, Rhodes praised Iraq under Siege as "carefully documented, thoroughly researched, and written in clear language." A reviewer for the New Internationalist felt the 2000 edition was "not … for the squeamish." The same reviewer went on to note, however, that Iraq under Siege "is worth reading: a passionate and hard-hitting analysis of the situation in Iraq." Similarly, Jessie M. Colin, reviewing the same work in the Journal of Cultural Diversity, concluded, "This compilation of essays should cause us to pause and reflect on the human tragedy that is still occurring, and it should make us realize that we can no longer remain silent and complacent about the humanitarian crisis in Iraq or elsewhere around our world."

Arnove deals with later conditions in Iraq in his 2006 work Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, in which he attempts to lay out a strategy for American disengagement from the Iraq War. A Publishers Weekly contributor thought "Arnove's persuasive reasoning and summaries of relevant events … will prove an invaluable resource to antiwar voices," though it is not likely to change the minds of prowar thinkers. Similarly, a reviewer for Tikkun concluded, "Arnove assembles a formidable arsenal of information" useful to people on both sides of this divisive issue."

Working as editor with Zinn, Arnove helped to collect primary documents supporting Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States. In Voices of a People's History of the United States, Arnove and Zinn present an "impressive companion volume," according to Kliatt reviewer Patricia Moore. Following the chaptering of A People's History of the United States, this companion volume offers the full text of many of the references Zinn used, and also adds further voices, usually ignored by mainstream historians. Writing in Social Education, Andrea S. Libresco noted, "It is clear that Zinn and coauthor Anthony Arnove intend these stories of historical activists and their social action movements to be instructive for our civic behavior today." Libresco further commented, "One would hope that this wealth of material, which includes excerpts from songs, poems, novels, autobiographies, speeches, eyewitness accounts, petitions, testimonies, and essays, might induce teachers to allot more time to recent history."