Page 93 - All About History - Issue 56-17

Reviews

ALeXAnder HAmiLton:

tHe grAPHiC History of An AmeriCAn founding fAtHer
Discover the man behind the musical
Author Jonathan Hennessey Artist Justin Greenwood
Publisher Ten Speed Press Price £15.53 Released Out now
he multifarious and turbulent life of linear and clearer. We follow Hamilton from
Alexander Hamilton has been turned his humble beginnings as the orphaned son
into one of the most successful of a Scottish tobacco agent in the Caribbean
stage musicals of recent years. This to his time as a pamphleteer, his service in
Tgraphic novel is a far cry from that the Revolutionary War, his ascent to political
production’s energetic hip-hop inflections. high office, his fall from grace and eventually
It’s a fairly dry biography of one of America’s his death in a duel.
founding fathers that manages to enumerate All of this is told in wordy, factual captions
Hamilton’s accomplishments and flaws and chunks of authentic-sounding dialogue,
without really bringing its subject to life. accompanied by decent, loose-lined art from
The opening chapters are, frankly, all Justin Greenwood that manages to illustrate,
over the place. Jonathan Hennessey’s script if not exactly illuminate, the text. Greenwood
takes a couple of dozen pages to settle down seems able to draw only one kind of face
and tell its story. There are digressions, so his characters are hard to tell apart, but
flashbacks, infodumps and even a recurring his use of colour is strong and his page
fantasy sequence that draws tenuous composition never less than interesting.
allegorical parallels between the American There is no question that Hamilton was
fight for independence and Adam’s struggles an extraordinary man who, in overcoming
with the serpent in the Garden of Eden. all the odds to rise from obscurity, seems an
Once the background detail has been early epitome of the American Dream. If only
sketched in, the narrative becomes both this book were as extraordinary.

WAtLing street: trAveLs tHrougH

britAin And its ever-Present PAst

The myths and legends of Brexit Britain
Author John Higgs Publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson Price £18.99 Released Out now

tretching from the white cliffs of Dover to To help him take on such an ambitious project,
the Welsh isle of Anglesey, Watling Street Higgs also ropes in avant-garde artists like
is an ancient road. Down the ages and Alan Moore and John Constable (the shamanic
along its 444-kilometre length, Roman London poet, not the dead painter). These
S armies have marched, Boudicca met interviewees discuss Britishness in meditative,
her end, the Battle of Bosworth changed royal sometimes metaphysical terms.
history and Bletchley Park code breakers cracked But, while Higgs does use esoteric phrases
Nazi transmissions. While the road is almost like ‘noosphere’ to describe our relationship with
forgotten, the route still snakes through Middle culture, he counterbalances his high-minded
England’s market towns and forms the backbone ideas with a wry humour, so Watling Street
of some of the country’s major highways, doesn’t feel like a university lecture. Sometimes,
including the A2, A5 and M6 Toll. though, he does lose his way and his political
Writer John Higgs journeys along the length broadsides against private education and land
of this main artery of British culture in his new ownership feel like self-indulgent detours.
travelogue. While a lesser work of popular history Smart, ambitious and iconoclastic, Watling
might just use this road trip as a means to just Street challenges the stories the British tell
recount stories of Britain’s past, Watling Street is themselves — from Robin Hood to the Blitz spirit
more interested in Britain’s relationship with its — and puts them in their cultural context. But
past. This leads the author to some interesting by tearing down the familiar Union Jack bunting
conclusions. For example, he links highwaymen and exploding old ideas of Britain’s national
like Dick Turpin with the modern ‘gig economy’ identity, Higgs offers an alternative that will leave
of zero-hour contract workers. you with a newfound fondness for these isles.
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