Representations of Islam in United States Comics, 1880-1922 examines the depiction of Islam,Muslims, and the Islamic world in U.S. popular culture, particularly comics and relatedartifacts, between 1880 and 1922.Through cartoons, comics, editorial cartoons, serialized advertisements and other materials thebook unfolds a narrative about how the Islamic world and its people were understood by theAmerican government and its people. This "knowledge," garnered from popular culture of theday, produced a lens through which domestic and international relationships were created andmaintained. Representing a wide swath of U.S. popular culture and discourse, the reflectionsthese artifacts offer are united in their depiction of the "Oriental" in an era that is largelyassumed to have been marked by American un-interest in the region, peoples and religion.An exciting contribution to a growing field, this book resituates the U.S. within the Islamicworld, using the everyday medium of comics to provide a fresh perspective on the subject.Maryanne Rhett provides evidence for the claim that comics matter - that they tell ussomething about society and the collective meanings we have made of the world around us,both as far back as the late 19th and early 20th century platinum age of comics and - byimplication - today. She uncovers political cartoons and comics strips that are otherwiseburied, fluently reads them as art and text, and inserts them into a discourse informed byEdward Said and Yvonne Haddad. Critically, this work extends our understanding of Islam inthe United States, and American visions of Islam, to an era often ignored by otherscholars. Trevor Getz, Professor of History, San Francisco State University, USA