Product Review

“From the Bastille to Baghdad,” The Cartoon History of the World Part 2 is the conclusion (for the moment) of Larry Gonick’s award-winning and bestselling annals of humankind presented in graphic novel form. Picking up after the American Revolution, where Part 1 left off, Part 2 opens with the Enlightenment and rolls across Napoleon, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, World War I and II, and all the way to our recent imbroglios in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Cartoon History of the Modern World Part 2 is a monumental, one might say “historic” achievement, at once edifying, irreverent, and wildly entertaining. Terry Jones of Monty Python said of the first volume of this series, “Obviously one of the great books of all time.” And modern civilization’s most recent act is no less enthralling.