A People's History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaptation by Howard Zinn, Paul Buhle and Mike Konopacki

Zinn, Howard, Konopacki, Mike, Buhle, Paul. A People’s History of American Empire: A Graphic Adaptation. Metropolitan Books and the American Empire Project, 2008. ISBN:9780805087444

Plot Summary

Since a People’s History questioned what traditionally schools have taught in history classes, from the way big businesses have shaped this country, to telling the story of Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 this book is a graphic adaption of A People’s History. Opening with 9/11 events and the way the US expands to the West, critiquing the Monroe Doctrine. Events that are delved into are World War I, intervention in Central America, the Cuban revolution, invasion of the Philippines, the war in Vietnam to a name a few. It also tells Howard Zinn’s story in Brooklyn, child of Jewish immigrants and his trajectory becoming a professor.

Critical Evaluation

As someone that read a People’s History of the United States, the book is lengthy, wordy and includes many more points in history, it was hard to finish the text version. Although the content is rich, if you’re not reading it for a class, it may be discouraging to get through, for it is long and a nonfiction book, which depends on personal reading interests, that may be difficult for someone that is not a history guru or into books that are text heavy. Having said this, this book is very easy to read. It is told as if it’s a lecture.  One may need more knowledge of history, and this book alone A critique is that a bit of it was left out (from events important in A People’s History). The images help depict what comics are good at, depicting images that at times words can’t do justice towards. The comics did feel that they appeared cartoonish for my personal taste, considering the content. It is serious content not brainwashing US history and the comics didn’t seem to do justice to the work. Although, Zinn himself was an inspiring and hopeful individual, reading history as it is told in this adaption, one can say it is difficult to be hopeful about the United States’ future and overall humanity. How power and greed, and interlocking systems of oppression is the name of the game, and with activism woven throughout history, as highlighted brilliantly in his works, it is often slow and not highlighted enough in popular media including K-12 history lessons. 

Reader's Annotation 

Want to learn about American history not taught in schools and in a graphic adaptation, read this book. 

Author Information

Howard Zinn: 

Zinn grew up in Brooklyn in a working-class, immigrant household. At 18 he became a shipyard worker and then joined the Air Force and flew bombing missions during World War II. These experiences helped shape his opposition to war and his strong belief in the importance of knowing history.

After attending college under the G.I. Bill, he worked as a warehouse loader while earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University. From 1956 to 1963, he taught at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA, where he became active in the Civil Rights Movement. After being fired by Spelman for his support for student protesters, Zinn became a professor of political science at Boston University, where he taught until his retirement in 1988.

Mike Konopacki, left, graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1974 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. He began labor cartooning for the Madison Press Connection, a local daily created by striking newspaper workers in 1978. In 1983 he and Gary Huck created Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons, syndicating their cartoons to the labor press in the U.S. and Canada.

Paul Buhle is the author or editor of more than three-dozen books. Formerly a Senior Lecturer at Brown University, he produces radical comics today. He founded the SDS Journal Radical America and the archive Oral History of the American Left and, with Mari Jo Buhle, is coeditor of the Encyclopedia of the American Left. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Source: https://www.howardzinn.org/about/biography/

Source: https://huckkonopackicartoons.com/who-we-are/

https://www.versobooks.com/authors/266-paul-buhle

Genre

Nonfiction - History - Graphic Novel 

BookTalking Ideas

Why do you think that in our schools this is not normally taught? What about knowing this much information, a whole population, can intimidate a country/those in power? 

Reading Level/Age Interest

9th -12th grade 

Challenge Issues

Politics. Native American history.   I will defend it with the Library Bill of Rights and Los Angeles County Library Collection Policy. 

Why I Included This Book in Collections 

I added this for our young people to understand the side of history that is not told, still in our classrooms. It is important that they know why the United States is where it's at globally, and the origins story of this country, and the pain and violence caused, and we cannot have amnesia about it. I also believe that graphic novels speak to our young people of today due to their connections to social media/images as shared by this quote: The increase of verse-novels can be contextualized within the discussion of forms and formats, acknowledging how various techniques such as word-pictures (Dresang, 2008) are appearing in this framework along with the provocative inclusion of silence through empty spaces on the page. 

Dresang, Eliza. (2008). Radical Change Revisited: Dynamic Digital Age Books for Youth. 

Howard Zinn at MIT: The Myth of American Exceptionalism 

We Really Still Need Howard Zinn