Rating: 
Summary: I receommend it as a textbook!!!
Review: Now this is the way history ought to be taught! While I personally have always enjoyed history and found it fascinating how historical events have an impact on our lives today, I have also always been distressed that so many people haven't the faintest interest or knowledge of even basic history. I concluded that this was mainly a result of the way history is taught in schools, via boring, dry textbooks whose only pictures were paintings of kings or photographs of a Greek vase or architectural ruins. Gonick's portrayal of history through the medium of comic illustrations is timely and wonderful. It is also remarkably well-researched and delves into history most in the West are unfamiliar with, such as the origins of Islam, the great empires of Africa and central and east Asia, and the history of Europe in the Dark Ages, between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance. While the presentation is at times hilarious and firmly tongue-in-cheek much of the time, it also doesn't sugarcoat the many wars, massacres, and other nefarious doings of human beings throughout history, but even in this Gonick is able to make light of the situation, making a running joke of the Byzantine's practice of always blinding a deposed emperor (so he couldn't return to the throne) and poking fun at his own Jewish heritage (the Jewish queen of Ethiopia putting a guilt trip on her soldiers: "Why don't you WIN more!? Don't you love me!?") I would highly recommend this book to anybody with an interest in history, and even more highly to those with school-age children or relatives who might be struggling with history because of the poor presentation too many school teachers give the subject.
Rating: 
Summary: Laugh-out-loud, fall-on-your-butt hysteria!
Review: Okay, so it isn't that humorous. I bought this a couple of days ago, figuring the good reviews it got on Amazon.com. Needless to say, I enjoyed it. There are some parts in the book that have sexual implications but nonetheless, everything was fun, interesting, and witty. As a history major, I recommend this to all my fellow history buffs as well as anyone who finds history to be boring. After reading this book, history shouldn't be boring anymore!
Rating:
Summary: What it missed out on
Review: The subject of Anglo-Israelites. This was a belief that the Lost 10 Tribes of Israel made their way to the British isles and settled there. This theory was suppported by the fact that the English actually did resemble Jewish people (Lyndon Johnson and Golda Meir). We now now through DNA studies that the theory is false. The English only look like Jews because 10,000 years ago a bunch of neolithic syrian farmers came and settled in Europe, especially Britain. The author, when writing this book and section about the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, doesn't mention how someday the descendents of Britain would be mistaken for Jews.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but filtered through modern perceptions
Review: The _Cartoon History of the Universe_ is a good outline, on the whole, of the sweep of human history (and pre-human pre-history). For a quick newbie-friendly introduction, it's hard to beat. About the only nit I can pick is the way Gonick insists on portraying ancient and medieval people as shocked at, or guilted out about, slavery. Back before machines, you _had_ slaves or _were_ slaves (or the equivalent)...there was no third choice. Slave-trading was a perfectly respectable trade for a very long time, until the West decided to end it.
Rating:
Summary: Very good, but filtered through modern perceptions
Review: The _Cartoon History of the Universe_ is a good outline, on the whole, of the sweep of human history (and pre-human pre-history). For a quick newbie-friendly introduction, it's hard to beat. About the only nit I can pick is the way Gonick insists on portraying ancient and medieval people as shocked at, or guilted out about, slavery. Back before machines, you _had_ slaves or _were_ slaves (or the equivalent)...there was no third choice. Slave-trading was a perfectly respectable trade for a very long time, until the West decided to end it.
Rating:
Summary: Well written history painted with broad brush strokes
Review: This is a splendid read. Entertaining, and *gasp* educational! Gonnick has taught me more about African and Arab history in one book than twelve years of schooling and an avid interest in world history has in 31 years. His cartoons are simple, but stylistically his own, and his love for his subject matter is obvious. I might have had the odd disagreement with how he presents events, but then my speciality and interest in European History can allow me to be critical, but he has a lot of subject material to cover. Should be recommended reading for anyone studying world history, or who just wants to know how it all happenned. Ballyho!
Rating:
Summary: Gonick Makes History...Again!
Review: When Gonick's comics first started popping up in comic book stores, I took it as some sort of underground comics joke - "This can't actually be about history, right?" Then I figured, "He'll never get an audience." Then I figured, "he'll never finish it." Well, "Cartoon History" became a bookstore smash, and now Gonick takes us right up to the time of Columbus (the book ends with him setting sail). I'm not enough of a historian to judge his accuracy, but his hard work and love of the subject are obvious, and his cartooning is delightful. Typically, Gonick's text tells us what's happening, and the cartoon shows it happening, with the real-life characters often giving away their true motives in reg'lar talk that intentionally robs them of their mystique. Instead of making them seem fictional, the cartooning and jokes make the icons of history humans we can relate to. Sometimes characters are sketchy, or crowded out by text and/or maps, but that's because this book has a lot to say, and Gonick goes with whatever gets his point across best. The best part of this approach is how many disparate events can be tied together, and you SEE not just when but WHERE events happen. This is great because it makes the geography of history, always a great headache to me, easier to follow. Good thing, too, because this one literally goes all over the map. (as it should!) Highly recommended to history and comics fans of all ages, though high-minded parents should be notified that, though his work couldn't be called [bad], Gonick does not shy from tackling issues ...
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