A People's History of American Empire: The American Empire Project, a Graphic Adaptation

A graphic novel that shows a negative history of United States.

In theory, a graphic novel version is a great idea. Graphic novels can convey more sophisticated ideas to younger readers in a way that text only books often can't. I was really looking forward to this book as a way to introduce Zinn's work to kids.

The art and writing on this is not as good as the

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ideas deserve. If a kid is old enough to understand the concepts being depicted, then they can also handle more nuanced writing and art that is not simplistic and caricatured.

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A People's History of the American Empire is in many ways a typical Howard Zinn work of history. It tells you everything you'll never learn by reading a high school history textbook. For instance, how did the United States, a peace-loving, God-fearing nation with no imperial ambitions whatsoever,

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end up with such a large empire? The usual way, Zinn reports: by sending poor white soldiers to kill poor brown people and steal their resources...claiming the moral high ground all the while. (Manifest Destiny = "God WANTS us to kill all the Native Americans!")

The difference with this work of Zinn: it's presented in comic book form. ("Graphic novel" form, if you insist.) The art is simple but effective, supplemented with plenty of period imagery: black & white photos, newspapers, et cetera. The idea is to make Zinn more accessible, I suppose. Let's hope plenty of people sample this book and then move on to Zinn's magnum opus, A People's History of the United States.

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I really enjoyed the visual aspect that this book added to Howard Zinn's writing. However, I found that some of the fictionalized stories made a strong statement that was poorly substantiated. Zinn has a habit of making strong, sometimes counter-intuitive assertions, but usually backs them up with

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data. There were several places where he did so in this book, but there were also enough places where I wanted to know the how he was able to back his statements,

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This is a graphic novel adaptation of Zinn’s famous history book, “A People’s History of the United States.”

It doesn’t cover everything in “A People’s History...”, but starts with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, when American soldiers killed or wounded 300 Native Americans in

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about an hour. In the 1890’s, America was going through a depression, so a foreign enemy was needed against which to rally the public (along with finding new markets to exploit). The Cuban Revolution was attempting to throw off four centuries of Spanish rule. The sister of a Cuban rebel leader told the story of being searched for secret documents by a Spanish matron while on a US steamer. The American press turned it into an accusation by Spain that America was too weak to defend the honor of its women, and that women on American steamers were being strip searched. Calls were made to annex Cuba. The spark needed to start the Spanish-American War was the destruction of an American battleship in Havana harbor (“Remember the Maine”). Spain was blamed, but the US government was skeptical.

During World War I, the Espionage Act was passed to criminalize any antiwar talk that could be interpreted as discouraging enlistment. The law also secretly empowered private associations to spy on “disloyal” Americans. After World War II was won, but not officially over, the new American empire decided to start testing its new weapons on defenseless people. Zinn was involved in a bombing raid on a French town where several thousand German soldiers waited for the end of the war. On that day, over 1200 planes dropped nearly 400,000 gallons of napalm on the town of Royan.

Did you know that during the war, the wearing of zoot suits was considered dangerous, and was a kind of draft resistance? This book also looks at Vietnam, the Civil Rights era, the Pentagon Papers, the Contra War in Nicaragua, and the Iranian Revolution. It has a bibliography for those who want to read further.

For those who have never read “A People’s History of the United States,” perhaps intimidated by its several hundred page length, this is a wonderful alternative. For those who have read Zinn’s book, this helps to put a face to the names, and is still very highly recommended.

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his graphic historical narrative is an adaptation of sorts of ideas from Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States. Those familiar with Zinn's works will not be surprised to know that American History in this work is viewed through the lenses of class and race conflict domestically and

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imperialism internationally.

Any historical graphic narrative labors in the shadows of the work of Larry Gonick. Unfortunately, Zinn, Konopacki & Buhle fall short in this comparison. Gonick is an accomplished cartoonist and entertaining storyteller who makes ample use of (often irreverent) humor while presenting his sometimes out-of-the-mainstream histories; A People's History of American Empire (APHoAE) features adequate but by no means exemplary cartooning and is a consitantly serious and humorless affair.

As Gonick does with his comics, Zinn is used as a narrative character within APHoAE--a technique that force comparisons with superior works. However, Zinn also appears in some chapters as a viewpoint character. This serves to muddy the waters as to whether APHoAE is meant to be a historical memoir or an objective view of history.

Another curious decision is to make liberal use of historical photographs within the work, often in place of regular drawn panels. There seems to be little rhyme or reason for what has been chosen to be drawn and what is represented by a photograph. Also, the reproduction of most of the photographs is quite poor and tends to downgrade the visual quality of the book.* Konopacki is a good enough artist that these photograph panels could have been drawn, and doing so would have given the work better visual cohesion.

Whether or not one agrees with Zinn's political and/or historical views, A People's History of American Empire is a less-than-compelling work of graphic narrative.

Rating: 2 (of 5)

* (This review is based on an advance reading copy provided by the publisher. As an uncorrected proof, there is a statement that reads 'some illustrations are not final,' which seems like a very odd thing to do for review copies of a comic-format work.)

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When I was a kid I inherited my uncle's Mad magazine collection which had some comic books mixed in including a three-part series about the Civil War. This was a hagiographic history where all the soldiers called one another "Billy Yank" and "Johnny Reb" done in the style of Classics Illustrated. A

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People's History of American Empire is a very different comic book history. Based on Zinn's A People's History of the United States as well as Zinn's own life this is a graphic depiction of the times in American history where the nation failed to live up to the standards of liberty and equality for all. Mainly this involves the repression of people within the United States (Indians, blacks, immigrants, and labor), wars in foreign lands (Phillipines, Vietnam, and Iraq) and intervention into the autonomy of other nations (Iran, El Salvador, and many more) for the benefit of powerful and wealth American elite. A comic version of Zinn narrates the book frequently turning over the story to characters contemporary to the events described. Interspersed in this narrative are stories of the social movements in America such as Civil Rights, labor, and anti-war.

I particular found it interesting in the parts that covered events I'd only heard of or knew nothing about, such as:

• The Black 25th Infantry who fought valiantly at San Juan Hill but were denied credit.


• The Jitterbug Riot


• The counter-cultural protests of R&B fandom in the 1950's.


• The Diem Regime and South Vietnam "essentially a creation of the United States."


• The Second Battle of Wounded Knee


• Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers

This is a good introduction to the other side of American history in a brief and well-illustrated manner.

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Interesting. Europeans will enjoy it.

Graphic Novel: Zinn, Howard. A people’s history of American empire a graphic adaptation. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2008.

Characters: Black Elk (Native American), Big Foot, J.P Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, Teddy Roosevelt, Felipe Agoncillo, George Dewey, W.E.B. Du Bois,Adolf Hitler,

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Joseph Stalin, Harry Truman, Martin Luther King Jr., H. Rap Brown, Ronald Reagan, Mohammad Mossadegh,Dwight D. Eisenhower, Osama Bin Laden,
Setting: United States, Europe, Philippines, and Japan.
Theme: Expansion of the American Empire
Genre: realistic, history
Summary: This graphic novel discusses the reigns of the American empire. It also follows the author’s own story and how he became a leading historian. It begins by exploring the imperial empire of the United States and the impact of the massacre at Wounded Knee, the Pullman Strike and our Open Door Policy. The novel explains the role of America in the Cuban Revolution, invasion of the Philippines, World War I, World War II, Civil Right movement, and the Cold War.
Audience: Middle school, high school, and adults
Curriculum ties: U. S. History and World History
Personal response: This graphic novel would be an ideal supplemental reading for students learning about American history and world history. Although, interesting it provided little detail for a reader who lacks background knowledge on the issues discussed. I like that the novel used actual pictures and the characters resembled the historical figures discussed.

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This book is graphic novel version of Howard Zinn's popular history book 'A People's History of United States'. What the graphic novel format, I believe does is, increase the reach of this book by making it simple and more readable. It is concise history, should you want more - go dig stuff

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(details,evidence etc) from library. In that, it is successful and very much an eye opener.

When I picked the book, I believed it be a congratulatory, celebratory account of 'great, ancient' history of America. I couldn't be more wrong. The book traces all the moments in history when United States' domestic and foreign policy was contradictory to the principles of democracy it so popularly claims to enshrine. It talks of times of class difference, gender discrimination when women didn't have rights to even vote and slavery at home. It tells story of leaders of the times fighting these issues and how reining US governments tried to suppress them with their military/intelligence tools.

It soon moves on discuss foreign policies - how US intervened into internal affairs of other countries for 'National' and material gain - Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. It not only mentions all brutal massacres conducted by US around the world, but also tells the story of those heroes/good guys with out any romanticizing.

The artwork is black and white with different techniques - sketches, collage, shades and photographs with tinch of humor in graphics. There's one about President Ronald Reagen lying in a conference - his nose of Pinocchio. I have always liked such creative rambling of art, it always is intriguing.

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A great tool for teachers to help explain the history of the US in a fun but very informative way.

Howard Zinn, as always, sees history from the point of view of people, not nations.

From the point of view of a nation, conquest is good, and war is strategic. From the point of view of individual people, not so much. He makes this clear.

I would like to teach from this book but will have to dance

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a very nimble dance not to seem like a crazy hippie. Zinn doesn't make up his facts, but they are the ones that school textbooks tend to gloss over.

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The graphic format ultimately seems to be little more than a "Let's Make This Appealing to People Who Don't Like to Read" trope.

Patchy quick breeze through American history, feel like Zinn's book doesn't really work as a graphic novel. Picked up considerably in the sections where it drew upon his own experiences (e.g. his time serving in WW2). Would have probably loved this at around 16-17 which I guess is the target market.