Cartoon History of the United States

I have always had an interest in history, but remember as a child being frustrated by the confusing and half-told local and national histories I was taught in grade school. It seemed that all the leading figures in my history books acted out of purely noble motives, and surely never from greed or selfishness. However, once I had grown up and began speculate that they had indeed sometimes done important things out of greed or selfishness, history began to make alot more sense. Gonick does not use rose-colored lenses in an attempt to deify the movers and makers of U.S. history. He in fact, tries to show that these people more often than not had an all too human side. If you want to believe that America's past leaders have all been noble heroes, this book will offend you. On the other hand, if you enjoy irreverent yet topical accounts, this is a book for you.

Larry Gonick provides laughs and history together. His Cartoon History of the United Statesis entertaining and enthusatic. His bibliography is impressive. I would highly recommend this book to high school students and adults. Putting the information into cartoon form makes reading this book more fun.

If one wants to supplement their less than stellar history textbook in your classroom. Then one should give a good hard look to this book. My students generally like this one and it makes for some good class discussions. A lot of facts and issues are in here than in most of the PC & dumbed down Textbooks issued today.

I'm reading this book for what must be the fourth or fifth time now. I picked it up as an undergrad, to refresh my memory of the History I'd learned in High School - now I'm in grad school for Literature and it's still a useful tool since I rarely have time to read anything more focused or comprehensive. Quite simply it's a sort of mnemonic device - much better than having a set of history notecards and much more fun. Ignore the reviewer who said it's anti-Republican biased - it most certainly is not. Kennedy is drawn with a more foolish grin than Eisenhower (whom I actually think looks regal) and LBJ's caricature is certainly not flattering. The book's tongue-in-cheek political slant is apolitical - almost anti-politcal. It pokes fun at everything and everyone because Gonick has read the unpalatable (and biased) history books we were all forcefed in High School and offers his graphic history as an antidote to them. Recommended for busy readers and Trivial Pursuit players of all ages.

This is the kind of book to read if you really hate history but need to know it for school or something. It makes history fun, not just boring names and dates. I read it late at night, which displeased my family because I laughed so hard I woke them all up. I bought another copy of this book as a gift to my college history professor. He read it and commented, "It was very well-researched. I bet writing the cartoons was the easy part."