The Art of Controversy

February 18, 2013
The longtime editor and publisher of The Nation offers a highly personalized inquiry into the history and nature of political cartoons, and how they serve as a powerful tool of social criticism. Navasky (Naming Names) begins with an anecdote about a 1984 staff revolt at The Nation over a David Levine caricature of Henry Kissinger that staff perceived as sexist, then introduces three explanatory models vis-à-vis the apparent potency of such pictures: content theory, image theory, and neuroscience theory. Each is briefly sketched and fairly superficial, and the author combines all three theories in analyzing a variety of artists and past controversies, including the anti-Semitic cartoons of the Nazi publication Der Stürmer, and the 2005 protests over a Danish paper’s depictions of the prophet Muhammad. The bulk of the book is devoted to a “gallery” of cartoons by giants like Honoré Daumier, Thomas Nast, and Ralph Steadman, followed by a timeline of flashpoints from 1831 to 2012. Sometimes perfunctory, sometimes rich in detail, these entries—and the brilliant illustrations accompanying them—help make the book a valuable reference on the subject. Readers searching out a serious analysis of the social, political, and psychological sources and implications of the cartoon or caricature, however, will find this lively but capricious study less then satisfying. But the book succeeds as an introduction to the subject by a consummate insider. 76 b/w illus, 4 pages of color illus. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

February 1, 2013
The veteran journalist offers a survey of political caricature, international in scope, but a little sketchy in its short biographical summaries. As the former editor and publisher of the Nation, Navasky (Columbia University School of Journalism; A Matter of Opinion, 2005, etc.) at least twice faced open revolt from staffers at the liberal magazine for caricatures that he published, including a famous one by David Levine that shows Henry Kissinger raping (or at least sexually dominating) the world. Most of the outrage came not from the right but from the left, from feminists who decried the sexual stereotype of a man having his way with a submissive female, who protested in a group letter that "a progressive magazine has no business using rape jokes and sexist imagery (he screws, she is screwed) to make the point that Kissinger revels in international dominance. Kissinger is a man, but the globe is not a woman." The incident underscores many of the points made in the book: that there can be a big difference between the way a caricature is conceived and perceived, that images have a different and often greater power than words, and that "unfairness, by the way, is the point--there really is no such thing as a balanced or objective caricature....Caricatures by definition deal in distortion." Admitting that "my methodology was anything but scholarly," the author presents a variety of theories on how and why caricature derives its communicative power before proceeding through an "unguided tour" of more than four centuries of political caricature and a gallery of more than 30 caricaturists and publications, most represented by a couple pages of text and a couple pieces of work. Where even a master of the form such as Ralph Steadman dismisses caricature as "low art...nothing but a cheap joke," the imprisonment or even murder of some whose work has offended suggests how severe the consequences can be. Generally engaging and often illuminating, but the study might better have gone deeper rather than wide.

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March 1, 2013
The highly acclaimed, longtime editor and publisher of the Nation and the author of the National Book Awardwinning Naming Names (1980) here takes on a compelling subject, one nearly ideal for him and one that will appeal to his many adherents and deservedly earn him new readers. Although a bit repetitive, this heavily illustrated, entertainingly written look at poltical cartoons is both personalNavasky's experience with controversial drawing as well as writing is considerableand thoroughly researched. It is also deeply insightful, particularly in the discussion of caricature, a unique form of satire. Though the book's main focus is on Americans (Herblock, Edward Sorel, David Levine), Navasky also discusses well- and lesser-known twentieth-century cartoonists from around the world, and his inclusion of a time line of their persecution (and prosecution) is eye-opening and lends closure to his persuasively made conclusions.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)