Joe Sacco’s Journalism (2012) is a longtime resident of my TBR; I was reminded of it because of his Footnotes in Gaza and Palestine. This, however, is a fabulous introduction to his work, divided into six sections: The Hague, The Palestinian Territories, The Caucasus, Iraq, Migration, and India.

Most of the comics are in panels, but there are a few broader and double-spread illustrations that almost feel like a Where’s Waldo level-of-activity. Even if you are the sort of reader who is so preoccupied by text that you usually miss the illustrations in graphic novels or graphic memoirs, these drawings by Sacco will arrest your attention with their detailed and intricate line work. (Even the smaller panels will be more likely to hold your attention, because there is very little unused space in them: it feels like everything is RIGHT THERE.)

After each section, a page describes how the work was originally presented and whether it was the result of a satisfying or frustrating contract with that newspaper’s/magazine’s editorial team. With the Palestinian piece, there is another comic, a double-spread of panelled work, which explores the same situation from a slightly different angle (prepared for a different assignment). So there’s some insight into the working journalist’s life (though drawing, not writing).

The preface to all this raises some excellent points about how reporters balance subjectivity/bias and seek balance/objectivity. Sacco doesn’t take the easy route. He quotes American journalist Edward R. Murrow to remind us that “Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices—just recognize them.” And he warns against the myth of balanced reporting, saying that a journalist must “explore and consider” different “versions of events” but ultimately “get to the bottom of a contested account independently of those making their claims.

This was the perfect connection to Timothy Snyder’s The Road to Unfreedom (2018) which I was inspired to read after Emma wrote about her experience reading his On Freedom (2024). Prior to that, I had only read some of his essays/articles, but even there I admired his clarity and authority, his capacity to explain complex matters in the simplest of terms.

The Road to Unfreedom was published between the 2014 and 2022 Russian invasions of Ukraine; it was published during the 45th presidency of the United States, before he was re-elected as the 47th. Any thought I might have had, as to whether this work would remain relevant was quickly dismissed. Passages like this seemed to answer questions that I didn’t know how to articulate:

“Running for President in 2012, Putin rejected the idea of a European Russia, which meant ignoring external incentives that favored the rule of law. Instead. Proizvol would be presented as redemptive patriotism. The operative concept in the Russian language today is bespredel, boundary-less-ness, the absence of limits, the ability of a leader to do anything. The word itself arose from criminal jargon.”

It’s a little more than a decade ago, but it feels like it’s pulled from commentary about 2025 in the United States. And this passage, which reminds us that Ukrainians always knew and Americans, even still, a decade later, do not. Just this morning, I heard a reporter speaking about how 47’s pleas to Putin, to cease Russian attacks during the “peace talks”, with confusion in their voice, unsure why the Russians weren’t taking American peace-making seriously.

“The most remarkable element of Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine was the information war designed to undermine factuality while insisting on innocence. It, too, continued in the United States, with greater sophistication and more impressive results than in Ukraine. Ukraine lost the information war to Russia in the sense that others did not understand Ukraine’s predicament. In general, Ukrainian citizens did. The same cannot be said of Americans.”

And, above all, why all this matters: “If we see history as it is, we see our places in it, what we might change, and how we might do better. We halt our thoughtless journey from inevitability to eternity, and exit the road to unfreedom. We begin a politics of responsibility.”

A politics of responsibility: what a concept. Hunting around for a worthwhile read to set the tone for your 2026-reading? Sacco and Snyder will not disappoint.