Philip Smith obtained his Ph.D from Loughborough University, UK in 2014. His work has been published in Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Literature Compass, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, International Journal of Comics Art, Journal of European Studies, Asian Theatre Journal, Comics Forum, Slayage, and Journal of Popular Culture. He blogs for The Hooded Utilitarian.

The central thesis of this book is that Art Spiegelman's comics all identify deeply-rooted madness in post-Enlightenment society. Spiegelman maintains, in other words, that the Holocaust was not an aberration, but an inevitable consequence of modernisation. In service of this argument, Smith offers a reading of Spiegelman's comics, with a particular focus on his three main collections: Breakdowns (1977 and 2008), Maus (1980 and 1991), and In the Shadow of No Towers (2004). He draws upon a taxonomy of terms from comic book scholarship, attempts to theorize madness (including literary portrayals of trauma), and critical works on Holocaust literature.

Introduction 1. Formal Experimentation and Emotional Breakdowns 2. Historiography and Survival in Maus 3. The Story of a Story: In the Shadow of No Towers Conclusion: Divinest Sense