DOUGLAS FIELD relishes the hard-boiled language, satire and humour of the third and last of the Harlem trilogy
Best of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations, Part Three: 1984-2013
Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B
(SelfMadeHero £14.99)
PARTS one and two of Jean-Pierre Filiu and David B’s The Best of Enemies series served as a potent example of the power of comics to take complex subjects like the 300-year history of America and the Middle East and present them in a concise and entertaining manner.
Volume three continues that tradition, taking readers through 29 years of US imperial meddling, backstabbing and invasions, from Ronald Reagan’s humiliations to the wars of Bush father and son on Iraq, Clinton’s hijacking of the Israel-Palestine peace talks, the Afghanistan war and Obama’s Libyan and Syrian campaigns.
History shows from Iraq to Libya, and now Iran, that regime-change fantasies rarely deliver stability — but they always deliver human and economic cost, says MARYAM ESLAMDOUST
Star cartoonist MALC MCGOOKIN finds lessons for today in the punch, and the economy of line, of an extraordinary generation of illustrators
GUILLERMO THOMAS enjoys a survey of the current state of the CIA (aka Langley) from an expert and insider of sorts


