I think the reason that I’m surprised by Howard Zinn’s death — even though he was 87 — is that he seemed so alive right up to the full stop.

Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87 — Boston Globe

Howard Kunstler once said that the most interesting people he knows didn’t know what they wanted to be until they were 40. I guess Zinn figured out he wanted to be a historian slightly earlier than that, but 40 was about when his particular way of being a historian started changing the world.