Mafalda

“This is transnational cultural history at its best. Isabella Cosse takes us on a global journey to reveal how and why a simple comic strip that began in Argentina in the 1960s found resonance and took root in Western Europe during the early 1970s, became a unifying symbol of Latin America's ‘continental identity’ in the 1980s, and evolved into a mass-marketed icon whose namesake—the puckish, prepubescent, feminist rebel, Mafalda—is today recognized the world over.” - Eric Zolov, author of The Last Good Neighbor: Mexico in the Global Sixties

“Mafalda combines the best traditions of Latin American social and political history. A brilliant discussion of gender and the political seriousness of humor, this book ingeniously invites the audience to ‘read the funny pages’ while taking students on a rigorous analytical journey about the politics of Latin American modernity. Just like Mafalda herself.” - Heidi Tinsman, author of Buying into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States

"Isabella Cosse's sociohistorical study of Mafalda (which was originally published in Argentina in 2014) is an outstanding example of one important current of cultural studies in that country." - David William Foster, Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth

“In this important sociopolitical/cultural study (first published in Spanish in 2014, here smoothly translated by Pérez Carrara), Cosse demonstrates—with a nod to Freud, Bakhtin, and other ‘humorists’—how a simple comic strip about a 1960s middle-class little girl speaks to generations of Argentines and transcends national borders… Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” - J. Walker, Choice

"Mafalda was widely disseminated throughout the Spanish-speaking world and beyond; Cosse attributes the comic strip’s enduring popularity to its universal, humanistic humor and to the utopian nostalgia evoked by allusions to the hopeful, youthful 1960s. In explaining Malfalda’s relative obscurity in the United States, Cosse suggests that the cartoon’s social commentaries are too subtle for many American readers." - Richard Feinberg, Foreign Affairs

“Cosse’s contribution to the social and cultural historiography is invaluable.... Her research rests on a solid, innovative methodology and on primary sources that until recently had not enjoyed the status accorded to other, canonical repositories used by professional historians.” - Paula Halperin, Hispanic American Historical Review

“Cosse’s book is a crucial contribution to the study of popular culture and humor in Latin America.... [Mafalda] is a model for historians studying popular culture.” - Matías Hermosilla, H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews

“While remaining a twentieth-century cultural product, Mafalda still speaks to us today.... Isabella Cosse, with her brilliant, extremely precise and documented analysis, tells us about all this. And we hope that soon this text will also be available in an Italian translation.” (Translated from Italian) - Daniele Salerno, Studi culturali

“Isabella Cosse has produced a thoroughly researched, analytically robust, and well-written work.... [Mafalda] is an important read not only to understand the national and international impact of the comic strip itself, but also to experience Cosse’s masterful application of social and political analysis to make an important contribution to the history of humor in society.” - Jeffery Morris, Journal of Global South Studies

“With this book, Cosse problematises, or at least points to, the shifting nature of the way social class is conceptualised across time and space. Most of all, Cosse makes a significant contribution to studies of the enduring influence Latin American popular culture has on society.” - Mark D. Biram, Bulletin of Latin American Research

“Cosse’s extraordinary and paradigmatic book ... is clearly written and well-structured.” - Juan Poblete, American Historical Review