13 in 13

Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio by Derf Backderf 

New York : Abrams ComicArts, 2020.

279 p. : chiefly ill., maps ; 27 cm.

Meticulously researched and passionately drawn and retold, this graphic novel account of the Kent State Massacre of May 4, 1970 is superb.  This is a great book for bringing a tragic history alive.  Having known about the Kent State killings for decades, I was surprised by how much I learned and by the emotional power of Backderf's storytelling.      

In Backderf's graphic novel about the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer he centers it around his actually being a high school "friend" of Dahmer.  In Kent State, Backderf opens the book with a personal touch: his childhood memories of Ohio National Guard troops being used near his hometown to crush a Teamster's strike in the days before they were sent on to the Kent State campus where they wounded and killed 13 people in just 13 seconds. 

In this retelling Backderf manages to recreate the personal lives of significant figures in the Kent State tragedy.  We learn about student life on campus, radical activists, the peace movement, the culture of the college town, and the utter incompetence and immorality of political and military leadership at the time - leadership that was willing to kill, lie, and cover-up.  In the aftermath of the massacre, leaders lie about the protesters, the culpability of the men who fired on the students, and the leaders who gave the orders (one officer, Capt. Ronald J. Snyder even lied under oath about finding a gun on one of the students killed).  

I would highly recommend this book to any adult or young adult.  There is a lot to think about and learn from this terrible event of 1970.  In addition to the carefully structured story and illustrations, Backderf also includes copious notes at the back of the book that fill out information and indicate the pages in the novel that they refer to. 

Reduced to Tears

Tear Gas by Anna Feigenbaum
London ; Brooklyn, NY : Verso, 2017.
218 p. 22 cm.

This is a disturbing book and it should be.  It tells the history of how pain and distress inducing poison gas went from the less-than-lethal gas (yet still condemned by decent people) used against soldiers during WWI  to the go-to poison used by police and military forces of governments around the world to squash protests that they deem threatening to their order - no matter how unjust or unpopular.

The really interesting back story is how US marketing in the 1920s eventually triumphed in reshaping the perception of tear gas from a painful and uncivilized poison used against mostly-unarmed people to being considered a non-lethal alternative to more violent repressive tools of the state.  This book does a great job of showing that though tear gas - when used in moderation in an open-air environment - is not generally lethal, it's use by government forces throughout history has been such as to intentionally harm, maim and kill people.  This has been done by firing canisters and grenades directly at protesters (often at close range) and by using it in enclosed situations such as houses, prisons, cars, tunnels and buses.

The author also does a good job of showing how the use of tear gas rises when economic injustice is greater - during depressions, food shortages, violent occupations, etc.  Tear gas has been a crucial tool in unjust governments attacking protesters and destroying movements instead of addressing underlying inequities.  She also does a thorough job of showing how tear gas has been an integral part of the increasing militarization of police forces around the world (and showing how profitable this has been to suppliers).

For anyone interested in the history of this poisonous gas and learning how it has come to be so commonly used by all types of governments, I would highly recommend Feigenbaum's Tear Gas.