A People’s History of American Empire

The first thing that I feel obliged to tell everyone is that this is a much easier read than I every anticipated. A challenging and thought provoking read certainly, but compared to many other political (and none political) comics I have struggled to slog through, this one was extremely accessible. The panels are even a bit on the too big side really, but this means the art and text were extremely clear and easy to follow. The text blocks never got too overly-long, and the pacing kept things moving at a fairly engaging level.

Focusing in on the art first, the choice to intermingle cartoons with historical photographs really grounded the work for me. This is certainly one of the strong points of nonfiction graphic novels, and does not work nearly as well in text focused works. The choice to apply some sort of photoshop filter to most of these photographs however, was generally not successful. While it certainly helped the visual flow for some pages, more often than not it made the pages seem rushed and cheap.

Digging deeper into the subject matter of the book, I guess I should add the disclaimer that I am (at this point in my life) the sort of person who believes the sorts of things that Zinn is dishing out. So reading this was definitely preaching to the choir. That said, I do think that this book has a lot of merit so I will try and explain in as object a way as possible why I still think that everyone should read this book.

First of all, I think that even if you ultimately disagree with this book, it provides a counter explanation for a history I would say we probably all already know about. While some may say that Zinn needs more of a balanced perspective, I would argue that not all books need to be all things to all people. Most history classes cover the material from this book from the "politically correct" perspective. Therefor, rehashing main stream ideologies would be a complete waste of time in most cases. Life is short, Zinn is very up front and honest about his agenda and aims to provide the thinking individual with a more balanced perspective of the world overall.

Secondly, I would like to reiterate the fact that Zinn is totally up front with his agenda. Every single book you read has an agenda of some kind, even if sometimes the author themselves is not aware of it! Zinn is certainly not sneaking around and pretending to tell you one thing and indoctrinating you with another. In contrast to many more accepted works, being this obvious is a way in which he opens himself up to much more criticism.

Thirdly, in the face of some of this very criticism I would like to point out that Zinn does in fact provide us with a fairly lengthy bibliography. It might have been nice to incorporate it more into the book's narrative, but putting it all in the back and sorting it out by chapter is certainly not unusual. Also, most of the agenda put forward by this book is in fact backed up by documented facts. Facts that are certainly not as well publicized as some other facts and half-facts, but almost nothing in this book is pure speculation, contrivance, or unsubstantiated conspiracy theory. Studies, research and investigations have been done into most of these actions and turned up the narrative that Zinn is presenting to us.

Fourthly, I once again really appreciate how vulnerable and humble Zinn is throughout, particularly with how much more personal this book is than some of his other history books. His giving a speech was a very nice way of framing things and talking about his own mistakes really humanized him and made him more relatable. I also continue to appreciate people who are confident enough in their own opinions that they don't need to degrade and look down their noses at their critics. Even when it came to some seriously evil people, the book focuses more on letting people's actions speak for them rather than spending a lot of time tearing people down in a more personal, sneaky and/or subjective way.

And to conclude, I will say again, I think that pretty much everyone should read this. Even if you don't end up agreeing. This book is very thought provoking and challenging. No one should hold to beliefs blindly.