whitecat5000's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
3.0
An interesting start to a series.
nickdouglas's review against another edition
4.0
Felt like a good primer with a smart, fair POV. Now I want to read a full prose book on the subject.
bwreads's review against another edition
2.0
This was disappointing. I was hoping that it would be a brief but concise history in graphic novel form that would give me an overview of the history of US and Middle East Relations. Well, maybe the holes in my knowledge are too huge, but it seemed like a very patchy collection of sound bytes and name dropping that left me confused and bored. I think the author and illustrator would have been better served to break this up into more books, and add more detail.
At first I was looking all the names up in Wikipedia to get a background on them so that maybe the story would make sense, but then that was taking forever and I thought, "Really, why don't you just get some books that give you more of the picture?" So I found some titles at the library that may or may not be exactly what I want, and stopped looking stuff up in favor of just plowing on through.
The artwork was great, and reminds me of a fabulous local artist here in Oklahoma, Eric Humphries, although to tell you the truth I like Eric Humphries's art better. You can judge for yourself, though. http://www.paintedatrocities.com/index.html He hasn't done any graphic novels or histories that I know of, but I think he should.
Meanwhile, I'm going to be doing a little more research of the US and Middle East relations, because it is still a very foggy subject to me.
At first I was looking all the names up in Wikipedia to get a background on them so that maybe the story would make sense, but then that was taking forever and I thought, "Really, why don't you just get some books that give you more of the picture?" So I found some titles at the library that may or may not be exactly what I want, and stopped looking stuff up in favor of just plowing on through.
The artwork was great, and reminds me of a fabulous local artist here in Oklahoma, Eric Humphries, although to tell you the truth I like Eric Humphries's art better. You can judge for yourself, though. http://www.paintedatrocities.com/index.html He hasn't done any graphic novels or histories that I know of, but I think he should.
Meanwhile, I'm going to be doing a little more research of the US and Middle East relations, because it is still a very foggy subject to me.
chelseamartinez's review against another edition
4.0
I don't know if Part Two is already published but I look forward to reading it; that being said, this ~200 year history is the part I knew nothing about, from Middle East interactions between early America (as a nation) and post-WWII alliances over oil that led to Saudi Arabia's place of privilege today.
lettemeread's review against another edition
2.0
Pictures were great, story was easy to follow, just not what I was envisioning before I read it.
tymelgren's review against another edition
2.0
David B is a little bit famous for EPILEPTIC, which is about growing up with a brother who has severe epilepsy, and less famous for THE ARMED GARDEN, a collection of Persian legends that I thought was better than EPILEPTIC. Now he's teamed up with some guy named Jean-Pierre to try to teach us about the U.S. and the Middle East, and it's not very good. I guess I learned a couple of facts, but the most interesting stories in here are given so little context that I had no idea what actually happened or why. That aint good history. The constant conflation of Americans/Christianity/capitalism and Arabs/Islam/violence seems lazy and boring, and the retelling of the Gilgamesh epic (in which all dialogue is replaced with quotes from Bush & Cheney??) is stupid, baffling, and meaningless. Sorry that I'm so mad about this, it's just because I want things to be good, and this could have been like really useful if it was good, but instead it sucks. I'll probably read the second volume if it ever gets made, but I sort of hope it doesn't.
http://tymelgren.com/books/october2012bookreport.html
http://tymelgren.com/books/october2012bookreport.html
bodagirl's review against another edition
3.0
It was interesting, because I really didn't know much about the history of the Middle East, but it was very uneven. It went into great detail on some events (almost too much) and then skimmed over others. Granted that is probably because the historical record is also uneven, but I feel more could have been done.
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