Imagine a collaboration between Arnold Toynbee and R. Crumb and you get a pretty good idea of Gonick's clever and ambitious comic book series. This volume should not be taken as some kind of Mel Brooksish joke. Gonick does his research and interprets his sources with scholarly care. Inspired by the educational comic books of Latin American artist RIUS, Gonick makes world history a blast— literally, with his predilection for onomatopoeic word balloons. In this second collection—the last left us with Alexander the Great schlepping toward Persia—Gonick takes us on a side tour through India and China. He integrates myth and history to establish the origins of sectarian conflict in India, and attends to migration patterns from the Middle East to China in order to explain the development of Buddhism and Confucianism. Dynamic intrigue and the threat of northern barbarians compete with periods of prolonged peace. This highly selective version of Chinese history, though full of diverting stories, will be a bit confusing to readers unfamiliar with the main players. Back in Rome, meanwhile, after the death of Alexander, the republic enters its period of glory, followed by the building of the empire. Problems of succession lead to lots of lurid anecdotes about perverse and insatiable emperors, violent entertainments, brutal conquests—all of which Gonick records with Mad-like irreverence. He equivocates, however, in telling the story of Jesus, ending up with an uneasy mix of canonical fact and outright heresy. His account of the historical rise of Christianity is superb and demonstrates an interesting parallel with China: In both cases alien cults from the edge of the empires eventually captured the capital cities. Gonick's humor is mostly visual and relies on the juxtaposition of comical images with his relatively sober text. Despite his lefty, multi-culty inclinations, Gonick maintains the high level of sophistication, skepticism, and just plain fun established by the first volume.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-42093-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These interviews with veterans of the US Navy's SEALs comprise an anecdotal, slackly organized, and often unpleasant oral history of the frogmen and ``special warfare.'' Veteran military reporter Kelly (King of the Killing Zone, 1989, etc.) seems to have more interest in the ``warrior'' spirit than he does in placing these men in a historical and military context. The SEALs (for SEa, Air, Land) have their origins in the Navy's WW II underwater demolition teams and the special forces naval combat demolition unit. Formal training for SEALs units began in 1962. According to Capt. Ronald Yeaw, SEALs differ from other fighting men and ``other mortals'' because they ``really, really, really want to go into life-threatening, extremely dangerous situations.'' ``It is better,'' he says, ``to die than look bad or lose.'' Not all of Kelly's subjects speak with such childish bravado. Some, like Norman Olson, found something beyond the glory of combat and speak with a zest for their experiences. A pioneer in the use of the parachute by Navy frogmen, Olson later founded demonstration teams called the Chuting Stars and Leap Frogs. He recalls, interestingly, test jumps in 1958 to learn if scuba equipment could withstand the impact. Kelly accepts without comment one frogman's horrible story of a sweep of a Vietnamese village during which he discovered an old man with a bad leg wound. ``I had to kill him,'' he says, and claims that he first injected him with morphine and then stabbed him to death. There are more laudable and pertinent recollections, such as those concerning the SEALs' involvement in the 1983 Grenada invasion and a planned SEALs operation to disable the Achille Lauro when it was hijacked in 1985. If one can get past the gung-ho nonsense, these men sometimes make illuminating, if informal, contributions to naval and military history. (b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-89141-519-X
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Presidio/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
A disturbing, significant contribution to our knowledge of official Soviet anti-Semitism, based on recently declassified Communist Party and KGB archives. Kostyrchenko earned his doctorate and high positions in the Soviet Union as a researcher and archivist of WW II history and the USSR's aircraft industry. As formerly secret archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the KGB became available to the public, Kostyrchenko began recording this dispassionate yet voluminous study of the Soviet Union's obsession with obliterating Jewish life. Soviet Jews were the first to discover that ``the victory over fascism did not put an end to the Jewish national tragedy'' in Eastern Europe. At first, Stalin's attacks on organized Jewish life appeared to be just another arm of his Russification program that affected Armenians and other Soviet nationalities. But the author cites several reports and letters that make clear how disturbed the inner circle of the Kremlin was that so many prominent figures in the Soviet arts and sciences were Jews. Stalin appeared to give Jewish nationhood a boost with the 1934 establishment of the semi-autonomous region of Birobidzhan. Documentation published here, however, suggests that the remote region, far from being a ``Crimean Zion,'' was a typically cynical response to Stalin's fears of a ``Soviet Zionism.'' The uncanny ability of Stalin's kingpins to sniff out ``hidden sedition'' in anything Jewish is linked to large and small policies, from the Soviet Union's turning on the fledgling (and then quite socialist) state of Israel to the banning of Jewish burial societies. Kostyrchenko considers whether state anti-Semitism was Stalin's personal vendetta against Jews or a logical outgrowth of totalitarianism, concluding that the answer lies squarely between the two. Lurid documentation here, heaping layers of bitter irony upon Jewish and gentile hopes that the USSR would be the anti-fascist champion of multiethnic comradeship. (36 pages photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Jan. 30, 1995
ISBN: 0-87975-930-5
Page Count: 331
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1994
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