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Rating: 
Summary: One of the funniest books I've ever read!
Review: A must read for any history buff. This book pokes fun at the entire history of humanity and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Summary: History though the pen of a wise cracker.
Review: Good humor is based on truth, and this wise cracking book is both good humor and good history.
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Summary: The hysterical history in this MAD book is all true (really)
Review: The philosophy behind "History Gone MAD" is best summed up in a paraphrase of Santayana's famous dictum: "Learn well the mistakes of the past, for you are destined to repeat them, and you can't expect to botch things up right if you don't even know how it was done the first time." History teachers who like to shake up things a bit in their class will find some ammunition in this collection, written by Tom Koch and illustrated by Angelo Torres. The format consists of mostly full-page drawings and captions, starting with 3050 B.C. (A Sumerian invents the wheel only to see the idea stolen and duplicated by other Sumerians, thereby establishing "the business ethic") and getting all the way to 1964 ("Since the Bay of Pigs invasion turned out so well, we decide to liberate Vietnam, too"). There are a few double-page spreads (e.g., Moses leads the Jews out of Egypt in 1300 B.C. and 3,256 years later Moshe Dyan leads them back), although sometimes you have a set where the punch line comes on the second page. The whole thing puts a new spin on the idea of "the decent of man" (how low can you go?). Obviously it helps not only to know a little something about World History but also what constituted "current" events when Koch and Torres created these bits. But then everybody should get why the idea of why getting refunds for the second voyage of the "Titanic" would be funny or why Hitler was 988 years off on his thousand year Third Reich. Still, you have to recall that the NFL went and played its games the Sunday after the JFK assassination to get the bit about the NFL playing on after Pearl Harbor. History teachers can skip the ones that take too much explaining (or they could try explaining why certain things are really funny if only your get the joke). "History Gone Mad" is divided into seven periods, from ancient history and the Dark Ages to both the Old Order and the New Order collapsing. I can see students coming up with their own examples of the hysterical historical inspired by this MAD rush through history.
Rating:
Summary: The hysterical history in this MAD book is all true (really)
Review: The philosophy behind "History Gone MAD" is best summed up in a paraphrase of Santayana's famous dictum: "Learn well the mistakes of the past, for you are destined to repeat them, and you can't expect to botch things up right if you don't even know how it was done the first time." History teachers who like to shake up things a bit in their class will find some ammunition in this collection, written by Tom Koch and illustrated by Angelo Torres. The format consists of mostly full-page drawings and captions, starting with 3050 B.C. (A Sumerian invents the wheel only to see the idea stolen and duplicated by other Sumerians, thereby establishing "the business ethic") and getting all the way to 1964 ("Since the Bay of Pigs invasion turned out so well, we decide to liberate Vietnam, too"). There are a few double-page spreads (e.g., Moses leads the Jews out of Egypt in 1300 B.C. and 3,256 years later Moshe Dyan leads them back), although sometimes you have a set where the punch line comes on the second page. The whole thing puts a new spin on the idea of "the decent of man" (how low can you go?). Obviously it helps not only to know a little something about World History but also what constituted "current" events when Koch and Torres created these bits. But then everybody should get why the idea of why getting refunds for the second voyage of the "Titanic" would be funny or why Hitler was 988 years off on his thousand year Third Reich. Still, you have to recall that the NFL went and played its games the Sunday after the JFK assassination to get the bit about the NFL playing on after Pearl Harbor. History teachers can skip the ones that take too much explaining (or they could try explaining why certain things are really funny if only your get the joke). "History Gone Mad" is divided into seven periods, from ancient history and the Dark Ages to both the Old Order and the New Order collapsing. I can see students coming up with their own examples of the hysterical historical inspired by this MAD rush through history.
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Summary: Mr. Koch is the best -- PAT TROFA
Review: These books are garenteed awesome to buy. Mr. Koch is quality, and so is his writing.
Rating:
Summary: Mr. Koch is the best -- PAT TROFA
Review: These books are garenteed awesome to buy. Mr. Koch is quality, and so is his writing.
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