Leftist historian Zinn extracts from his evergreen A People's History of the United States (1980), recruits foursquare labor cartoonist Mike Konopacki to gussy it up graphically, and voilà! A very good-looking (because historical photos are incorporated into the visual flow), engrossing, informative nonfiction graphic novel is born. The theme, imperialism, is closely adhered to, though the decision to begin after the Civil War ignores the first seven decades of U.S. land grabbing and scheming to get public money into private pockets. Uncomfortable truths are told about every U.S. war and military intervention since, the ongoing suppression of the Indians is well covered, and the baleful role of big money is reliably pointed out. How the civil-rights struggle relates to imperialism per se isn't explained, however, and Zinn's zeal for revolution (he scolds President Cleveland, who refused to attack Spain in Cuba, for not then supporting the Cuban rebels) makes it plain that this is an anti-imperialist, not an anti armed aggression, history.

<p>An overly episodic but nonetheless powerful teaching tool for the next generation of anti-imperialist activists.</p>

Gr 10 Up-A study of empire-building by established politicians and big businesses from the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee through the current Iraq war. As nonfiction sequential art narrative, this stellar volume is compelling both as historical interpretation and you-are-there observation during many eras and in many climes. Konopacki melds realistic and energetic cartoonsZinn lecturing in the present day, American and Vietnamese soldiers in the jungle, the Shah of Irans White Revolutionwith archival photos and document scraps to create a highly textured visual presentation. Each episode has its own period-specific narrator: Woody Guthrie sings about the Ludlow Massacre, a zoot suiter recounts the convergence of racial politics with popular music, and Zinn remembers his class-conscious boyhood through World War II soldiering and activism undertaken as a Civil Rights-era college professor. Politically charged, this book cant stand alone as a history text, but it is an essential component for contemporary American government education, as well as an easy work to suggest to both narrative nonfiction and sophisticated comics readers. Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia