Using cartoons as historical evidence

Abstract

This introduction deals in survey with the major issues surrounding the use of cartoons in history and historical scholarship to date; as well as arguing the need for a greater complexity of thought when dealing with questions of image construction, audience, and visual metaphor. The introduction provides a brief overview of the succeeding chapters and places them in a broader context of the history of the political cartoon. It also ties the issues dealt with in the book into the broader debates over cartoons in the present.