June 2023 MBR The World History Shelf

The World History Shelf

Postcards from Congo: A Graphic History
Edmund Trueman, author/illustrator
Arsenal Pulp Press
www.arsenalpulp.com
9781551528953, $19.95, PB, 176pp

https://www.amazon.com/Postcards-Congo-Graphic-Edmund-Trueman/dp/1551528959

Synopsis: The Democratic Republic of Congo is the second-largest country in Africa by area. It has had a fractured and bloody history, variously undone by decades of colonialism, civil war, corruption, and totalitarian rule. The country has played a crucial role in the economic growth of the Global North, but in doing so, has suffered immensely. So many seminal advances in technology were possible only through the extraction of materials from Congo ranging from rubber to copper to uranium to coltan. In each case, the Congolese people paid a great price exacerbated by the weight of colonial exploitation and dictatorial rule.

"Postcards from Congo: A Graphic History" is comprehensive graphic style history in which author and illustrator Edmund Trueman explores the fractious story of Congo. Through deft illustrations and storytelling, Congo's history (not widely known to Western readers) comes vividly alive. We see how Congolese musicians have spread their language across Africa by creating some of the most popular music on the continent, and how Congolese women have spent decades sidestepping sexist legislation to become leaders in local business.

From resistance against colonialism to the fight for independence and the self-determination to make a life in an almost stateless place, "Postcards from Congo: A Graphic History" depicts how the Congolese people have resisted and survived in order to take control of their lives and the country they call home.

Critique: Informative enhanced for the reader with the Inclusion of a Foreword by historian Didier Gondola, Professor of African History at Johns Hopkins University, "Postcards from Congo: A Graphic History" is a fascinating, informative, and thought-provoking approach to history that takes a kind of graphic novel approach to telling a non-fiction history. While available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99), "Postcards from Congo: A Graphic History" will hold interest for readers wanting to know more about central African history in general, and the Republic of Congo in particular. In a format that could well serve as a template for similar histories of other African nations, "Postcards from Congo: A Graphic History" is unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library African History collections.

Editorial Note #1: Edmund Trueman (https://arsenalpulp.com/Contributors/T/Trueman-Edmund) has been creating and self-publishing underground comics for the last decade. He has written from his own experience about topics ranging from the refugee crisis to the squatting movement. Postcards from Congo is his first long-form graphic non-fiction work, and his first work dealing with African history.

Editorial Note #2: Didier Gondola (https://history.jhu.edu/directory/didier-gondola) is Professor of African History at Johns Hopkins University. He has a PhD in African History from the Universite Paris 7 in 1993. His publications include numerous articles and chapters on popular cultures (music, fashion, gambling, and memory), gender and postcolonial issues in Central Africa and the African diaspora in France. His most recent book is Tropical Cowboys: Youth Gangs, Violence, and Masculinities in Colonial Kinshasa (Indiana University Press).

Travellers of the World Revolution
Brigitte Studer
Verso
www.versobooks.com
9781839768019, $39.95, HC, 496pp

https://www.amazon.com/Travellers-World-Revolution-Communist-International/dp/1839768010

Synopsis: The Communist International was the first organised attempt to bring about worldwide revolution and left a lasting mark on 20th-century history. With the publication of "Travellers of the World Revolution: A Global History of the Communist International", Professor Brigitte Studer offers a new and fascinating account of this transnational organization which was founded in 1919 by Lenin and Trotsky and dissolved by Stalin in 1943 -- and telling that story through the eyes of the activists who became its "professional revolutionaries."

Professor Studer follows such figures as Willi Munzenberg, Mikhail Borodin, M.N. Roy and Evelyn Trent, Tina Modotti, Agnes Smedley and many others less well-known as they are despatched to the successive political hotspots of the 1920s and '30s, from revolutionary Berlin to Baku, from Shanghai to Spain, from Nazi Germany to Stalin's Moscow.

"Travellers of the World Revolution" traces their journeys from revolutionary hope to accommodation, defeat or death, looking at questions of motivation and commitment, agency and negotiation, of life and love, conflict and frustration. In doing so, it reveals a forgotten Comintern, the expression of a multi-dimensional revolutionary moment, which attracted not only working-class but feminist, anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist activists, highlighting the role of women in the Comintern and the centrality of anti-colonialism to the Communist project.

This outstanding study finally concludes with a reflection on the ultimate demise of a historically unique undertaking.

Critique: An exceptionally well researched, impressively written, deftly organized, accessibly presented, and comprehensive political history, "Travellers of the World Revolution: A Global History of the Communist International" is a seminal work of meticulous scholarship, making it a critically important and unreservedly recommended contribution to personal, professional, community, college, and university library Political Science/History collections. It should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the 20th Century history of Communism and Socialism, that "Travellers of the World Revolution" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note: Brigitte Studer (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brigitte-Studer) is a historian and professor emerita of contemporary history at the University of Bern. A specialist in gender history and social and political history, she has written extensively on political activism, international Communism and Stalinism, citizenship, welfare and employment protection as well as on female suffrage and women's movements. Her books have been published in English, German, French, Italian, Russian and Turkish. She has taught at the Universities of Geneva and Zurich and at Washington University (St.Louis, USA). She has also been a visiting professor at the EHESS in Paris and at the University of Strathclyde, and senior visiting fellow at the University of Vienna and at the University of London's Institute of Historical Research.

A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives
Philip Matyszak and Joanne Berry
Thames & Hudson
https://thamesandhudson.com
9780500297056, $16.95 pbk / $12.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-Rome-100-Lives/dp/0500297053

Synopsis: A vibrant portrait of a lost world, A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives reveals the mightiest civilization of antiquity through the eyes of one hundred of its citizens. The book gives a voice not just to Rome's most famous generals and rulers, such as Caesar and Caligula, but also to its builders, sculptors, poets, historians, gladiators, shepherds, enslaved people, and courtesans.

The book begins with Faustulus, the foster father of Romulus and Remus, and closes with the final emperor, Romulus Augustulus. The stories of Roman women are given their due as well - from Servilia, Caesar's lover; to Agrippina, the murderous wife of Claudius; Amazonia, the sword-swinging gladiator; and Hypatia, philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician. Exploring every level of society and using the latest archaeological evidence as well as ancient texts, the authors build up a picture of what it meant to live in Ancient Rome.

Critique: Now in an affordable paperback edition with 20 full-color illustrations, A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives is an engrossing tour of the Roman Empire's centuries of grandeur and decline through the biographies of 100 individuals ranging from rulers and generals to scholars, Christian martyrs, civil servants, and ordinary people. Thoroughly accessible to readers of all backgrounds, A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives is a "must-have" for both personal and public library collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that A History of Ancient Rome in 100 Lives is also available in a Kindle edition ($12.99).

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