WITNESS TO THE AGE OF REVOLUTION

Part action comic, part historical biography: an attempt to correct the record and give a pivotal figure the prominence he deserves.

As Walker, a history professor who has written widely on Latin American history, writes, Juan Bautista Túpac Amaru (1747-1827) “was an unlikely icon. He did not lead men into battle or give inspiring speeches. His memoirs are his only publication. He himself expressed surprise at his turns of fate, including his decades of harsh imprisonment and his return to freedom in Argentina as an old man.” That autobiography, in which he chronicles what he suffered, endured, and observed on three continents, in exile and imprisonment, demonstrates that he “had a ringside seat to the events of the Age of Revolution and rubbed shoulders with many of the era’s important figures.” He lived not only during a time when the New World was threatening to cast off the chains of the old, but also when the French Revolution was illuminating the hope of liberation. After his half brother, José Gabriel Túpac Amaru, died in the Inca revolution, Juan Bautista faced a lifetime of incarceration and misery. He was taken in chains on a deadly voyage across the Atlantic to Europe, where he would spend almost half of his life imprisoned. The graphic narrative of the first section, illustrated by Cape Town–based illustrator Clarke, is a swashbuckling account, as colorful and action-packed as a summer blockbuster. In the second and third sections, which are not illustrated, Walker provides the historical context, including primary sources and information about how and when Juan Bautista wrote the memoirs that he published; how and why they were discredited, with a single source labeling them “apocryphal” and their author an “imposter”; and how it took a century before their veracity was confirmed. This is a fascinating story, though younger readers of the graphic narrative may be jarred by the contrast between the illustrated first half and the academic second half.

An educational hybrid, with vivid illustrations backed by scholarly context.