The Cartoon History of the United States is well written and interesting. However, it was a decided disappointment in comparison to his Cartoon History of the Universe comics or his strips in Discover magazine. If all you're looking for is a populist slanted history of the United States, read Zinn's or some other more comprehensive work. If your looking for lots of high quality cartooning, go for a different Gonick book. The art here is less detailed and doesn't carry a substory as much as other works. However, if you're just looking for easy to swallow history, by all means get this book--it's only bad by contrast.

I'm reading this book for what must be the fourth or fifth time now. I picked it up as an undergrad, to refresh my memory of the History I'd learned in High School - now I'm in grad school for Literature and it's still a useful tool since I rarely have time to read anything more focused or comprehensive. Quite simply it's a sort of mnemonic device - much better than having a set of history notecards and much more fun. Ignore the reviewer who said it's anti-Republican biased - it most certainly is not. Kennedy is drawn with a more foolish grin than Eisenhower (whom I actually think looks regal) and LBJ's caricature is certainly not flattering. The book's tongue-in-cheek political slant is apolitical - almost anti-politcal. It pokes fun at everything and everyone because Gonick has read the unpalatable (and biased) history books we were all forcefed in High School and offers his graphic history as an antidote to them. Recommended for busy readers and Trivial Pursuit players of all ages.

A great book for U.S. history buffs or the high school student in need of a guide to America's past. Gonick knows most people find history boring and does his best to liven it up without sacrificing information or content. An excellent example of cartooning at its best.

I have to admit that I had high hopes for this book, having read many of the author's other terrific books.

For me, the beginning of the book was the most interesting. It covered the evolution of communication, starting with single celled organisms and moving to fish, small mammals, and man. He describes how important our reptilian brain (i.e. the primitive portion of our brain that controls emotions and basic desires such as food and sex) is to communication, providing examples of how it can subconsciously shape messages.

The rest of the material, however, just didn't grab me as did his other books. He describes language and the use of icons, symbols, and kinesthetics ' but I didn't find that the cartoon format helped much. The next section describes the application of logic to communication, although I came away with the sense that the examples he used to support his theories had counter-examples that were ignored. Principles of good communication come next, with a nice pitch for replacing legalese in contracts with plain English. The second part of the book deals with the delivery of communication, including the use of images, writing, printing, television, and computer graphics.

I think that there is certainly a lot to learn from the book, but if you are new to the world of Gonick you might start with his books on Genetics, Statistics, or Physics in which his gift for illustration helps make difficult subjects much more digestible.