the Popular Front, an apologist for Stalin, and a pro-ducer of watered down folk music.

Part four examines Green’s scholarship, public pro-jects and advocacy work in light of his life story. Burns

argues that Archie Green’s experiences in the “age ofthe CIO” animated the work he did in his seventies

and eighties (xxv). Burns also argues for Green’s role asa central figure not just in public folklore, but in Amer-

ican cultural studies and New Labor history as well.The book concludes with an interview with Green

himself, introduced and conducted by Nick Spitzer.

Green makes his case for cultural and politicalpluralism, and expresses his hopes that the then-new

administration of Barack Obama would create someNew-Deal style programs for cultural documentation.

Burns’ work is a concise and thoroughly researchedinvestigation of a multifaceted worker, educator and

scholar. While the author is an able theoretician, he isat his best in narrative mode, conveying the stories of

Green’s remarkable life.

–-James Ruchala

University of North Carolina-Greensboro

Comic Art Propaganda: A Graphic

HistoryFredrik Stromberg. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010.

“DO NOT READ THIS BOOK” (7), Peter Kuper

warns in his foreword to Fredrik Stromberg’s newbook. For anyone interested in the history, social func-

tion, and persuasive power of comics, Kuper’s mockwarning is likely to have exactly the opposite effect. Inthe course of 175 richly illustrated pages divided into

seven chapters, Stromberg discusses how comics havebeen used as propaganda to promote messages from

political ideology, religion, and racial stereotyping tosexual behavior, drugs, and gun control. Stromberg

addresses each topic with historical and analyticalinsight, offering nuanced evaluation without reaching

argumentative conclusions, leaving to the reader finaljudgment of what the pictures convey.

Stromberg, a comics journalist and historian, is thechairman of Serieframjandet (the Swedish ComicsAssociation), the editor of Bild & Bubla (Scandinavia’s

largest magazine about comics), and the author of sev-eral books on comics, including two English-language

publications, Black Images in the Comics (2003) andThe Comics Go to Hell (2005), both of which were

published by Seattle-based Fantagraphics.

Comic Art Propaganda does not assert to be the ulti-mate survey of comic art propaganda, nor is it. Alhough

it includes surprising gems like Chinese worker-herocomics and Indian “grassroots comics” (146), and is

sympathetic to feminist and multicultural issues, itsmain focus is on male-dominated, Euro-American pop

culture. The book’s value and appeal lie in its broadscope, depth of analytical perspective, and multifarious

examination of comics propaganda in an internationalcontext. Most American comics readers are probablyfamiliar withWorldWar II propaganda enlisting super-

heroes such as Captain America and Superman to fighttotalitarian regimes in the early 1940s. Few may be

familiarwith the Indian comic bookTomsChithrakatha

in which American soldiers defile Iraqi women and Sad-

damHussein is a hero. Stromberg’s juxtaposition bringsto the fore ideological differences as well as the common

use of comics as a powerfulmedium for propaganda.Comics Art Propaganda adds perspective to recent

scholarship on comics and graphic novels, such as PaulLopes’s detailed sociological analysis of the Americancomics industry (Demanding Respect: The Evolution of

the American Comic Book, 2009) and Hillary L.Chute’s brilliant study of autobiographical graphic nar-

ratives by women (Graphic Women: Life Narrative &

Contemporary Comics, 2010). Unlike the academic

focus of those works, however, Stromberg assures hisreaders that his book is “not an academic study” (9).

Such reassurance of the popular—as opposed to aca-demic—appeal of books about comics and graphic lit-erature attests to the schism between so-called high and

low culture, and the sense of marginalization experi-enced by those studying popular culture. With its divi-

sion of comics propaganda into seven analyticalresearch-based chapters, supported by a meticulous list

of picture credits and combined subject-and-nameindex, Comic Art Propaganda is destined to inspire

general readers and scholars alike to take a closer lookat comics as a persuasive medium of social power.

–-Kirsten Møllegaard

University of Hawai’i at Hilo

Educated Tastes: Food, Drink, and

Connoisseur CultureJeremy Strong, Editor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press, 2011.

One of the byproducts of an education is thedevelopment of what is known as “good taste.”

192 The Journal of American Culture � Volume 35, Number 2 � June 2012