Customer Reviews

Doomed by Cartoon: How Cartoonist Thomas Nast and the New York Times Brought Down Boss Tweed and His Ring of Thieves

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Length:: 2:00 Mins

Before there was Fox News, YouTube and "Saturday Night Live," there was Thomas Nast, whose devastating caricatures in Harper's Weekly helped produce Boss Tweed's downfall. And in "Doomed by Cartoon: How Cartoonist Thomas Nast and The New-York Times Brought Down Boss Tweed and His Ring of Thieves" (Morgan James, $19.95), John Adler, a self-described amateur historian, along with Draper Hill (himself a political cartoonist), present Nast's work in serialized comic book form.

The New York Times reports that "Nast's drawings are fleshed out by an informative and engaging narrative that credits his impact without overlooking his political incorrectness. The caricatures are a vivid reminder that both campaigns and political commentary have, for the most part, gotten tamer."

John Adler has done America and history buffs a TREMENDOUS service with this remarkable book about the cartoons by Thomas Nast that brought Boss Tweed to justice and made New York City a better place to live. The cartoons themselves are gorgeously rendered and varied, and Mr. Adler manages to bring them back to life with well written and enlightening vignettes about how things were under the thumb of Tammany Hall. This book is absolutely A+. Hat's off to Mr. Adler!