Our favorite books of 2007: by Howard Zinn.

• Author: Zinn, Howard

For all those who want an antidote to the sentimental and superficial Ken Burns documentary The War , I suggest you find the recent book by Edward W. Wood Jr., Worshipping the Myths of World War II: Reflections on America's Dedication to War . It's a refreshing counterbalance to the much idealized, much romanticized treatment of that war, as in all the blather about "the greatest generation."

Wood was seriously wounded by artillery fire in September 1944. His previous book On Being Wounded tells of that experience in vivid detail. His latest book goes much further. While demolishing the myths surrounding World War II, his intention is much larger. He wants to demolish what he calls "the almost unanimous acceptance of the idea that the only way to defeat terrorism is through the politics of war and violence." In short, he is more concerned with the present than with the past.

The book is both intensely personal and broadly historical, so that his own passionate opposition to the violence of war gives a special weight to his analysis of the futility and immorality of war--all wars.

When you turn from history to literature, you find so much written in another era that is chillingly connected to...