This impassioned anti-war cartoon book by one of America's foremost illustrators answers again--in visual images and for different countries--the question posed by Norman Mailer 42 years ago in Why Are We in Vietnam? In other words, why are we half way around the world killing people who have done us no harm? Marc Simont's cartoons are satiric dispatches from the front, beginning with Vietnam and ending in Iraq and Afghanistan (so far). His drawings capture the essence of a brooding Nixon, a smiling Reagan, a bland Bush One and a dumbfounded Bush Two as they prosecute their wars. Simont's fierce portrayals of representatives of the Military-Industrial Complex--from Kissinger to Rumsfeld to Negroponte and Cheney--are intimately linked to his passionate sympathy and indignation on behalf of all civilians, soldiers and prisoners who have suffered. Simont is continually struck by the majesty of the planet as it floats in space like a jewel. Will it survive?

Author Biography

Marc Simont (born November 23, 1915 in Paris) is an artist, political cartoonist, and illustrator of more than a hundred children's books. Marc, inspired by his father, Spanish painter Joseph Simont, began drawing at a very young age. Mr. Simont settled in New York City in 1935 after encouragement from his father, attended the New York National School of Design, and served three years in the military. Marc's first children's book illustrated was published in 1939, and since then, he has received the Caldecott Honor for his illustrations of Ruth Krauss' The Happy Day and the Caldecott Medal for A Tree is Nice, by Janice May Udry. He also illustrated most of the Nate the Great books, as well as the book Top Secret. He and his wife, Sara Dalton, currently live in West Cornwall, Connecticut.