Graphic Histories

This list was created in 2023 to highlight some favourite Graphic History titles that are suitable for summer reading!

Updated November 20, 2023
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Alexander Hamilton : the graphic history of an American founding father
Hennessey, Jonathan
A graphic novel biography of the American legend who inspired the hit Broadway musicalHamilton. Alexander Hamilton was one of the most influential figures in United States history-he fought in the Revolutionary War, helped develop the Constitution, and as the first...
Amazons, abolitionists, and activists : a graphic history of women's fight for their rights
Kendall, Mikki
A bold and gripping graphic history of the fight for women's rights by theNew York Timesbestselling author ofHood Feminism "A beautifully drawn, hold-no-punches, surprisingly deep dive through the history of women's rights around the world, which will entrance...
The Arab of the future : a graphic memoir : a childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984)
Sattouf, Riad
The Arab of the Future, the #1 French best-seller, tells the unforgettable story of Riad Sattouf's childhood, spent in the shadows of 3 dictators--Muammar Gaddafi, Hafez al-Assad, and his father In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of...
The Art of War : An Illustrated Edition
Sunzi
A delightfully illustrated version of Sunzi's classic The Art of War by bestselling cartoonist C. C. Tsai C. C. Tsai is one of Asia's most popular cartoonists, and his editions of the Chinese classics have sold more than 40 million copies in over twenty languages. This volume...
The beats : a graphic history
Pekar, Harvey.
InThe Beats: A Graphic History, those who were mad to live have come back to life through artwork as vibrant as the Beat movement itself. Told by the comic legend Harvey Pekar, his frequent artistic collaborator Ed Piskor, and a range of artists and writers, including the feminist comic...
Berlin
Lutes, Jason
Berlin: City of Stones presents the first part of Jason Lutes' captivating trilogy, set in the twilight years of Germany's Weimar Republic. Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures in a broad cast of characters intertwined with the historical...
Canada at war : a graphic history of World War Two
Keery, Paul
A beautifully crafted graphic novel, tracing the achievements of the Canadian Forces in the Second World War. In 1914, Canada went to war as a subject of Britain. In 1939, it made the choice to fight all on its own.Canada at War follows the developments and setbacks, wins and losses, of a...
Canada at war : a graphic history of world war two.
Keery, Paul
Days of destruction, days of revolt
Hedges, Chris
Two years ago, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges and award-winning cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco set out to take a look at the sacrifice zones, those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement. They wanted to...
Escape to gold mountain : a graphic history of the Chinese in North America
Wong, David H. T.
Winner, Chinese American Library Association Best Book Award winner (Fiction) The history of Chinese immigration to Canada and the US over the past 100-plus years has been fraught with sadness and indignity; newcomers to North America encountered discrimination, subjugation, and...
The essential art of war : Sun-tzu ping-fa
Sunzi
Ralph D. Sawyer is the preeminent scholar and translator on Sun-tzu's masterful work. More than 200,000 copies of hisSun-tzu Art of War and more than 55,000 copies ofThe Complete Art of War have been sold. TheArt of War is the most famous study of strategy ever written and...
Louis Riel : a comic-strip biography
Brown, Chester
"It has the thoroughness of a history book yet reads with the personalized vision of a novel." -Time Chester Brown reinvents the comic-book medium to create the critically acclaimed historical biography Louis Riel, winning the Harvey Awards for best...
Maus : a survivor's tale
Spiegelman, Art
The bestselling first installment of the graphic novel acclaimed as "the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust" (Wall Street Journal) and "the first masterpiece in comic book history" (The New Yorker) * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * One of Variety's...
Palestine
Sacco, Joe.
A landmark of journalism and the art form of comics. Based on several months of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, this is a major work of political and historical nonfiction.
A people's history of American empire : a graphic adaptation
Zinn, Howard
Adapted from the bestselling grassroots history of the United States, the story of America in the world, told in comics form Since its landmark publication in 1980, A People's History of the United States has had six new editions, sold more than 1.7 million copies,...
POSTCARDS FROM CONGO: A GRAPHIC HISTORY
Trueman, Edmund.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, the second-largest country in Africa by area, has 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...
Safe area Goražde : the war in eastern Bosnia 1992-95
Sacco, Joe
The winner of the 2001 Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Album. Sacco spent five months in Bosnia in 1996, immersing himself in the human side of life during wartime, researching stories that are rarely found in conventional news coverage, emerging with this...
Showa : a history of Japan
Mizuki, Shigeru
A fascinating period in Japanese history explored by a master of manga Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan is the first volume of Shigeru Mizuki's meticulously researched historical portrait of twentieth-century Japan. This volume deals with the period...
Soviet daughter : a graphic revolution
Alekseyeva, Julia
This is the story of Julia Alekseyeva and her great-grandmother Lola. Born in 1910 to a poor, Jewish family outside of Kiev, Lola lived through the Bolshevik revolution, a horrifying civil war, Stalinist purges, and the Holocaust. She taught herself to read, and supported her extended family working...
War's end : profiles from Bosnia, 1995-96
Sacco, Joe
War cartoonist Joe Sacco visits the Bosnian conflict to uncover the stories that are often ignored or uncovered by traditional media. How does an artist reconcile being forced to go to the front line of a brutal conflict that will change his life and homeland forever? What...
Wobblies! : a graphic history of the Industrial Workers of the World
Buhle, Paul
The stories of the hard-rock miners' shooting wars, young Elizabeth Gurly Flynn (the "Rebel Girl" of contemporary sheet music), the first sit-down strikes and Free Speech fights, Emma Goldman and the struggle for birth control access, the Pageant for Paterson orchestrated in Madison Square Garden,...

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