"My bias is this: I want my readers to think twice about our traditional heroes, to reexamine what we cherish (technical competence) and what we ignore (human consequences). I want them to think about how easily we accept conquest and murder because it furthers "progress". Mass murder for "a good cause" is one of the sicknesses of our time. There were those who defended Stalin's murders by saying, "Well, he made Russia a major power." As we have seen, there were those who justified the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by saying "We had to win the war."
(Howard Zinn, "Passionate Declarations", chapter "The use and abuse of History").
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