America (The Book) by Jon Stewart

Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)

Review: I’m a big fan of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, but for some reason I’d never felt curious to read any of their books until this year. I considered starting with Earth (the book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race, but thought I’d go through this older one first.

I have to admit, when I started I was a bit taken aback. I don’t know what I expected, but the first chapter (“Democracy before America”) was written with such an unapologetic disregard for History that I couldn’t even find it funny, at first. However, once the initial “shock” had passed, this book got funny as hell. It’s opinionated, scandalous, hilarious, and so spot-on that my bittersweet feeling of not knowing whether to laugh or get depressed was sustained throughout the whole book.

This is presented in the form of an educational book for children, and since the content couldn’t be further away from that demographic, it’s doubly funny to see “helpful” diagrams, maps, games and illustration to help the reader understand a little better this wonderful but deeply flawed thing we call Democracy.

Highly recommended. Read with an open mind!

Old Europe explained.