When I was a child, I was given an illustrated history of Britain – not a cartoon exactly (there were no speech bubbles), it depicted each episode of history with a series of strip drawings. I loved that book to death, and read it countless times – I was mesmerised by the story of England’s kings and queens, Joan of Arc and more. Little did I realise how out of date the book was – for years I harboured a dread of the National Service that the book told me was coming! Reading A People’s History of American Empire is the first time since then that I have read a full blown illustrated history, this time in all-out cartoon form, and it’s wonderful. Taking a very similar approach to Icon Books excellent For Beginners series (later renamed to Introducing) it blends a cartoon narrator based on Howard Zinn with cartoon narrative, documents, photographs and quotations to bring the subject matter to life in a way that prose can’t match.

As well as being pictorial, this book is both very personal and very polemical. Based on Zinn’s bestselling book A People’s History of America, with additional material from his autobiography, the wonderfully titled You Can’t Be Neutral On a Moving Train, the book takes the form of a lecture from Zinn, and later parts draw on his personal experiences of childhood, of serving in the Air Force during WWII and of America during the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam War protests. The central argument of this book, which is timely and relevant in the context of continuing US involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is this: despite the emphases on democracy and freedom that are an integral part of the USA’s founding myth, its foreign policy and its attitude to other peoples (and many of its own people) has consistently failed to embrace these values. Numerous detailed examples are given, from the many US interventions in the Caribbean and South America, to taking over the Philippines from Spain, the support of the Contras in Nicaragua and death squads in El Salvador, to the interference in Iran that ultimately led to the fall of the Shah.

Going further back, Zinn looks at relations with the Native American tribes (over 400 treaties broken), who were the first peoples to be on the receiving end of American expansionism, and at the history of capital vs organised labour, to emphasise the relationship between American foreign policy and the capitalists that he argues are the main beneficiary of the American empire. Lest you think him politically partisan, he is not afraid to slaughter the sacred cows of the left either: FDR is portrayed as a President who claimed to oppose empires during WWII, but who in effect was looking to advance America’s economic and diplomatic empire to his own nation’s advantage.

The central argument of the book – that imperial power will not be voluntarily constrained by law – is simple, powerful and a heady call to social activism, protest and commited citizenship. Coupled with this elegant means of presentation, A People’s History of American Empire makes some very relevant episodes of history compelling and accessible, and I thoroughly recommend it, to Americans and to the rest of the world.

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