In 1996, a sociologist James Loewen published the 384-pg "Lies My Teacher Told Me" lambasting the food chain of American history, from authors and publishers to teachers and book selection committees. In wasn't the first book to denounce the vanilla version of history taught in middle schools and high schools, but it was the first book that attempted to supplement history...
more In 1996, a sociologist James Loewen published the 384-pg "Lies My Teacher Told Me" lambasting the food chain of American history, from authors and publishers to teachers and book selection committees. In wasn't the first book to denounce the vanilla version of history taught in middle schools and high schools, but it was the first book that attempted to supplement history learned at the high school level. Between MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky (linguistics, philosophy), World War II veteran and Historian Howard Zinn, adult readers had, by 1980, a feast of writings about US state-sponsored propaganda about Vietnam, CIA interventions in Latin America and FBI suppression of social justice organizations. UC Berkeley Professor of History Ron Takaki added his 520-page "A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America" in 1993. Those books began an onslaught of revisionist and investigative history, ultimately influencing the present generation of teachers and curriculum planners who had very few classroom ready material for middle- and high-school students, or those with limited exposure to revisionist history.
In 2008, following a 2003 update to his 1980 book "People's History of the United States", Zinn worked with the American Empire Project and illustrators to adapt and condense that material to a graphic novel format. The history is ripe for graphic novel adaptation. It's filled with action and conflict, heroes and villains. Though I miss the detail of the all-text "People's History", the 260-page graphic novel condensation of Howard Zinn's 750-page epic fulfills its duty in making accessible his critical and critically needed telling of American History.
Like "People's History of the United States", readers of "American Empire" will be led through feelings of anger, hopelessness, disbelief, shock, but also hope, inspiration, and renewal. "American Empire" begins with mourning the events of 9/11 and the American government's response. Zinn laments the mass invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as acts of empire building, then systematically highlights key examples of American waging empire upon the Western Hemisphere. We learn that all violent and clandestine acts of government control, even within the US, are acts of empire building. We see Wounded Knee, union uprisings of 1880-1920, the US betrayal of the Filipines, WWII, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Watergate, Anti-War movments, the Contra scandel, and the CIAs meddling in Iran. Then, in prelude to describing the hopeful actions of concerned citizens, Zinn also treats us to an insight to his time as a WWII bombardier and then as a Civil Rights/Peace advocate.
Graphic novels must balance the pace of the text with the pace of the images. Punchy and explicit images need little text accompaniment while images with little action relies heavily on textual progression. Thus, graphic novel formats mix 3-7 panes per page, with the usual 1-page or 2-page spread of particularly important developments or stunning imagery. The length of a graphic novel necessitates different pacing than shorter comic books. Like novelist and screenwriters, authors of graphic novels must be more careful rhythmically. They must give readers a chance to rest after high emotion or high-action sequences. The team for "American History" gets this almost perfect.
Graphic novels most effectively convey action-narrative, but Editor Paul Buhle and artist Mike Konopacki create an illustrated Howard Zinn lecture, just a few too many talking panes filled with historical characters talking about events, instead of illustrating the events themselves. There was just too little of what I consider the strong-suit of graphic novels: action. Buhle and Konopacki juxtapose hand-drawn comic-like images with historical photos and era-specific posters/flyers. We see Zinn himself speaking. We often see half-narrated flashbacks of historical events. We also see relevant illustrated and/or photographic non-narrative images of Zinn's lecture points.
Ultimately, the gauge for any alternate media adaptation is whether or not the new medium allows the consumer to appreciate a new aspect of the material. The images of a graphic novel should create an emotional reaction with the readers, building to a sense of attachment to images themselves. But the comic art in "American Empire" itself doesn't add to the history. Instead, we must depend on the text itself to feel the import and weight of those shards of critical history. Perhaps Konopacki's style isn't the best suited for a volume like this. If DC and Marvel artists had could get their pen-and-ink out of the fantasy realm, Zinn illustrated thesis of American Empire would have better helped readers visualize the content, while nabbing readers in the teens and early twenties.
Despite its short-comings in the graphic novel format, "American Empire" still fills and an important gap in the literature for those outside the choir. Readers will gain an appetite-whetting introduction of those histories and be inspired to learn more. Or, they could be completely turned off. In either case, the graphic novel opens the history to a wider audience, whether it's comic nerds or middle-school students or their parents. It also makes for a great conversation piece for coffee-table: "Hey, what's that?"
"A graphic novel... about what the US Government has done here and in other countries to suppress democracy. can you believe it?!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well... to begin with, remember hearing about all those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?..."
hide
Yes (0) 
No (0) 
