Historian, activist, and author Howard Zinn loves his country. This does not mean he refrains from reproaching it for its crimes; such reproach is one of the spurs to it doing better one day soon. To that end, Zinn became an academic. However, as the child of poor, working-class parents, Zinn has also been a blue-collar dockworker and labor organizer, a decorated WW2 bombardier, an adviser to the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and leader of the peace movement at Boston University in the 1960s. Zinn is the rare historian who's been brave enough to participate in the making of history, and this film finds him returning to the role of anti-war activist in post 9/11 America, asserting the value of nonviolent civil disobedience, and the need for ''people's movements'' to effect social change.