The Cartoon History of the Modern World Part 1: From Columbus to the U.S. Constitution

May 13, 2010 | By In Movie |

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5 Comments so far

  1. Queen Sue-the-Temporary on May 13th, 2010

    I hate history. I bought this book for a friend and hope he has enough ‘basic’ information already to get through this. The cast of characters is unwieldy and how the people connect with others is confusing. Way more information than I wanted. I don’t even understand the jokes – if there CAN be jokes about boring history. The only way I’d look into this book again, is if my giftee sits by my side and explains the details in this tome – but I’ll only devote another 5 minutes to any such capsulization. This book just reinforces my resistance to history.
    Rating: 2 / 5

  2. Geoff Matthews on May 13th, 2010

    First of all, I was a big fan of the first 3 books. But this one was no where near as good. Here are some of my complaints.

    He comes off as more forgiving of the Aztec empire (human sacrifice, slavery and all) than the Spaniards (slavery, sans human sacrifice). A little more examination into the changes in the native populations day-to-day life would have been appreciated.

    He seems to dismiss the theory that germs were the dominant factor in allowing Europeans to conquer the Americas. While he does touch on disease in a few instances, his only direct approach is to portray this notion as a way to assuage white guilt. But this was, almost certainly, the reason why Europeans were able to conquer the Americas and not Africa or Asia.

    He perpetuates the myth that the croissant was invented to commemorate the victory of the Siege of Vienna. In fact, the myth originally claimed that it was invented for the siege of Budapest, and this was most likely invented as well. The first time that this story is told is in 1938, far too long after the fact to be accepted as fact.

    The treatment of slavery and the U.S. constitution is shallow. There were real conflicts here that could have been given better treatment. I’d rather that he’d saved this for another volume than skim over it.

    The religious conflicts in Europe were much more complex, and deserved more in-depth treatment. Too often, Gonick makes snarky comments about the participants, but there were real fears, real ambitions, etc. that motivated these conflicts.

    In fact, too often, just like his comparison of Aztecs to Spaniards, he seems willing to accentuate European sins over non-European sins. One can’t help wondering what types of biases he harbors when addressing these comparisons. Was life in Peru really better under the native lords than under the Spaniards? Under what measurements?

    As well, the Ottomans are never addressed directly, even though they were an important world power. And did the Ottomans work in the African slave trade (why yes, they did)? How did this effect Africa, Turkey, etc.?

    Some of this may be alleviated in future volumes, but this volume by itself is weaker than previous ones.
    Rating: 2 / 5

  3. J. Goble on May 13th, 2010

    Gives a broad view of time which allows readers to get the big picture first before diving into the details in other books.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  4. Øystein Imsen on May 13th, 2010

    This is one of the best cartoons ever made. The first time I read it was 15 years ago, and I have read it millions of times since then. Very educational and entertaining at the same time.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  5. Benjamin G. Banks on May 13th, 2010

    Larry Gonick has produced the finest history books ever written. He has figured out how to cut through the often dry and uninteresting descriptions of historic events by turning them into comics. Who knew that the history of the Netherlands could be remotely interesting to anyone but a history professor? I find that his personal commentary is especially effective delivered in comic form, as he delivers it with slyly placed side conversations between the cartoon characters. This makes reading history as fascinating as any Freak Brothers tale. I anxiously await the next volume, as I’m curious to find out if the United States manages to survive into the 19th century!
    Rating: 5 / 5

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