Ally Shwed

A good primer on how the Constitution can interfere with modern governance.

Each section starts with a real world example of a problem caused or exasperated by the Constitution, a flashback to what problems our founding fathers intended to address when writing that part, and then ways we have dealt with those problems throughout the history of our country.

I don't think the graphic novel format really helps with the facts presented here, it's still pretty dense and wordy, but worth reading, especially for target audience.… (mere)

Even in graphic novel form, it took me a few days to get through this long and packed history and analysis of the U.S. Constitution. The format kept it from bogging down by taking a look at a modern day problem and following that with a flashback to the debates around the originating issue the Founding Fathers had during the Constitutional Convention in the 1780s. It's full of interesting historical tidbits and offers a decent overview.

Drawbacks:
* It's pretty light on diversity, making only passing mention of the issues of Black, Native, and LGBTQ+ Americans.
* It focuses heavily on the Executive Branch, becoming another of those books that is mostly about what the U.S. President is up to in any given decade.

The authors do court controversy in the final chapter by actually assigning letter grades to how successful the U.S. has been in following through on the promises laid out in the Preamble to the Constitution. I'm sure it's going to earn them quite a lot of hate mail.… (mere)