The young person’s illustrated guide to American fascism

This fierce, smart interweaving of punch-packing art and powerful, precise words lays bare the authoritarianism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny that populate the political landscape of the United States today. Designed especially to inform and activate younger readers, these pages pay particular attention to the threats facing the most basic tenets of American democracy, exemplified by the attempted stealing of elections, violence on the streets of the capital, and the evasion of legal consequences by the most powerful in the land. Beyond the crimes of Trump and his cohort, The Young Person’s Illustrated Guide explores the threads of fascism in U.S. history and shows their baleful influence on today’s foreign policy, especially support for genocide in Gaza, and the brutal treatment of asylum seekers along the U.S./Mexican border. Perfectly complemented by Stephen Eisenman’s crystalline text, Sue Coe’s art is, in turn, tough, satirical, bracing, sweet, and sober. It secures her place in a pantheon that features the zine illustration of Art Spiegelman, the realism of Philip Pearlstein, the caricatures of Honoré Daumier, the expressionism of Käthe Kollwitz, and the Dadaism of John Heartfield.