This is the first of Bloomsbury Object Lesson series I have read, a short monograph style on a particular piece of ephemera, trying to knit together a brief history, with thoughts and discussions on the importance of that item. As such this is probably an odd one compared to say the one on Trains or Bulletproof Vests - as what consists a Political Sign is a very broad church. And this is also an openly personal take on the subject, Carroll talks about his own history with political signs as someone in his early forties growing up in New Jersey his first interactions with them would be electoral lawn signs, and placards at a Equal Rights Amendment rally. But also he is open about his politics, what the major influences are (US 80's punk primarily - though Ann Nocienti's Daredevil run gets name checked a surprising amount) and how that feeds into the book. So this is oddly 80% about political signs, 20% memoir.
What the book therefore lacks in rigour it gains in bouncey narrative flow as we jump from placards, to Dead Kennedy album covers, to Labour's Not Working to right wing tattoos. It is both to large a subject - the history of political signage is basically a history of politics, and too narrow a focus - it is mainly his lifetime and mainly US (with a small sop of Britishness for the publisher). But then the point of this kind of monograph is not to be exhaustive, or even particularly authoritative, it is instead to start or help along a conversation, and to spur and make connections where none previously exist. So perhaps any caveat I have is just that Carroll's is representative of a voice I hear to much and have heard on this and similar subjects because he is - a little younger, and a little more American - me. Open-minded, left wing, semiotically savvy, dubious of the actual point of political signage but at the same time infuriated by it. I didn't walk away with many new ideas, and whilst I enjoyed the short study, it already feels dated despite its most recent textual reference being in late 2019.. That's not its fault, and would always be the case when writing about mass media (though the pandemic has chipped away at it), but there you go.
[Netgalley ARC]
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