What you don’t know about American history could fill a book. In fact, the book is here and entitled Lies My Teacher Told Me.
This graphic true story tells the rest of the tales not told in traditional history books. It also corrects some frequently repeated outright falsehoods. Some are widely known, like there were natives already in America when it was founded and we viciously fought them for total control of their land. To lesser known facts, such as what is commonly labeled as fighting to end communism was really done to help multinational companies make money by installing puppet regimes amendable to their plans.
While this book laments boring and overly long textbooks, it unfortunately falls into the same trap. Instead of being a true graphic novel, Lies My Teacher Told Me is more like a lightly illustrated history textbook. The quantity of words on each page truly overwhelm any art found there. So while the concepts are thought provoking and need to see the light of day, I would recommend reading the original book rather than this graphic version. This book would have been much better if only a few select stories were shown graphically rather than the plethora of subjects tackled here. 3 stars.
Thanks to The New Press and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.