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A review by saidtheraina
A Most Imperfect Union: A Contrarian History of the United States by Ilan Stavans
3.0
I wanted this to be a lot more contrarian than it actually ended up being. In the Acknowledgements at the end of the book, the author includes a list of movies and shows which cover particular moments in history, in chronological order. Movie versions of history often end up feeling (to me) more accessible than history books.
And that's kind of how this felt. A little transgressive, personal, but there wasn't a lot I hadn't heard before, in my various studies of history.
I also didn't find it particularly impressive as a graphic novel. It's super text heavy, and the images only occasionally go beyond straight illustration. Most of the pages had about two panels on them, with significant text that often started with "In [year], [something happened]." Although these events were in very rough chronological order, tangents and rabbitholes were often followed, there was a lot of (unacknowledged) backtracking, and very few connections were made between individual events.
I did appreciate the way that Stavans included references to popular media during the various historical periods. But I did not appreciate the way statistics were presented, throughout the book - without any acknowledgement of the potential problems of those numbers. I kept waiting for the author to slip in a "but how many __ are reported?"-type statement, but it never came. Which was disappointing, particularly in a "contrarian" book.
One moment that did give me pause: on pg. 24 -- "In many ways, the history of the United States is the history of its educational institutions." Hopefully, it's not news that history is written by the literate, but this statement brought that truth into focus even more.
I'm not totally certain who this book is intended for. Not comic book enthusiasts who are also casual history buffs, with liberal leanings. Not [a: Kate Beaton|2921970|Kate Beaton|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1318610112p2/2921970.jpg] fans. University students, maybe - the author is a professor.
And that's kind of how this felt. A little transgressive, personal, but there wasn't a lot I hadn't heard before, in my various studies of history.
I also didn't find it particularly impressive as a graphic novel. It's super text heavy, and the images only occasionally go beyond straight illustration. Most of the pages had about two panels on them, with significant text that often started with "In [year], [something happened]." Although these events were in very rough chronological order, tangents and rabbitholes were often followed, there was a lot of (unacknowledged) backtracking, and very few connections were made between individual events.
I did appreciate the way that Stavans included references to popular media during the various historical periods. But I did not appreciate the way statistics were presented, throughout the book - without any acknowledgement of the potential problems of those numbers. I kept waiting for the author to slip in a "but how many __ are reported?"-type statement, but it never came. Which was disappointing, particularly in a "contrarian" book.
One moment that did give me pause: on pg. 24 -- "In many ways, the history of the United States is the history of its educational institutions." Hopefully, it's not news that history is written by the literate, but this statement brought that truth into focus even more.
I'm not totally certain who this book is intended for. Not comic book enthusiasts who are also casual history buffs, with liberal leanings. Not [a: Kate Beaton|2921970|Kate Beaton|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1318610112p2/2921970.jpg] fans. University students, maybe - the author is a professor.