THE ART OF ILL WILL by Donald Dewey features over two hundred illustrations and tells the story of American political cartoons. From colonial cartoonists to such contemporary caricaturists as Pat Oliphant and Jimmy Margulies, these artists have had the uncanny ability to encapsulate the essence of a situation and to steer the public mood with a single drawing and caption.

Taking advantage of unlimited access to The Granger Collection, which holds many thousands of cartoons by Thomas Nast and others active in the genre, Dewey's lively yet scholarly The Art of Ill Will is a dazzling survey of American history writ large, capturing the voice of the people — hopeful, angry, patriotic, frustrated — in times of peace and war, prosperity and depression.

Despite the increasing threats they face as daily newspapers merge or vanish, cartoonists have given us some of our most memorable images, from Theodore Roosevelt’s pince-nez and mustache to Richard Nixon’s Pinocchio nose and Jimmy Carter’s chiclet teeth.

At a time when domestic and foreign political developments have made these artists more necessary than ever, The Art of Ill Will is a rich collection of the wickedly clever images that puncture pomposity and personalize American history.

Date of Publication: October 2007.  To order your copy now, click here.