The unknown history and devastating impact of American imperial
activities abroad.In this impressively ambitious, if scattered, new
offering from Metropolitan's wide-ranging American Empire Project,
left-wing historians Zinn (The Unraveling of the Bush Presidency,
2007, etc.) and Buhle (History/Brown Univ.; Students for a
Democratic Society: A Graphic History, 2008, etc.) collaborate with
graphic artist Konopacki on a graphic adaptation of key sections
from Zinn's bestselling A People's History of the United States
(1980). The book is imagined as a lecture on the ugly side of
history, delivered by the lean, aging Zinn to a darkened
auditorium, with each episode illustrated by Konopacki's almost
childishly simple illustrations, sometimes crudely buttressed with
grainy photographs. Occasionally, perky sidebars titled
"ZINNformation" pop up to point readers to a modern analogy or an
interesting bit of trivia. It's an effective technique for
delivering this laundry list of despicable behavior, though at
times the illustrations seem less than capable of truly rendering
their subjects. After a prologue that describes the government's
vengeful, knee-jerk reactions to 9/11 as "part of a continuing
pattern of American behavior," the main narrative begins abruptly
with the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890 and moves on to one
head-shaking moment of infamy to another. Being that Zinn is most
valuable for his insistence on shedding light on dark corners of
American history, the book comes most alive when it is describing
little-remembered episodes like the shameful American occupation of
the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War,
cleverly enlisting Mark Twain's embittered, virtually unknown
writings on the subject. The authors' thesis - that America's
imperial war machine manufactures conflicts abroad to further its
economic interests while stoking consumer demand and tamping down
dissent at home - is not developed as fully as it should be, and
current wars are strangely missing.An overly episodic but
nonetheless powerful teaching tool for the next generation of
anti-imperialist activists. (Kirkus Reviews)
Since its landmark publication in 1980, "A People's History Of The
United States" has had six new editions, sold more than 1.7 million
copies, become required classroom reading throughout the U.S.A.,
and been turned into an acclaimed play. More than a successful
book, "A People's History" triggered a revolution in the way
history is told, displacing the official versions with their
emphasis on great men in high places to chronicle events as they
were lived, from the bottom up.Now Howard Zinn, historian Paul
Buhle, and cartoonist Mike Konopacki have collaborated to retell,
in vibrant comics form, a most immediate and relevant chapter of "A
People's History": the centuries-long story of America's actions in
the world. Narrated by Zinn, this version opens with the events of
9/11 and then jumps back to explore the cycles of U.S. expansionism
from Wounded Knee to Iraq, stopping along the way at World War I,
Central America, Vietnam, and the Iranian revolution. The book also
follows the story of Zinn, the son of poor Jewish immigrants, from
his childhood in the Brooklyn slums to his role as one of America's
leading historians.Shifting from world-shattering events to one
family's small revolutions, "A People's History of American Empire"
presents the classic ground-level history of America in a dazzling
new form.
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