The Power of Caricature, Caricatures of Power.

This article reviews three recent scholarly books on the "Golden Age" of caricature in Britain and the United States, focusing on the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Tim Clayton's *James Gillray: A Revolution in Satire* (2022) highlights the British master caricaturist James Gillray and the vibrant, politically charged satire that flourished under relatively liberal free speech conditions. Alison M. Stagg's *Prints of a New Kind: Political Caricature in the United States, 1789–1828* (2023) challenges the notion that early American caricature was merely derivative, emphasizing its political significance despite smaller scale and quality compared to Britain. Amanda Lahikainen's *Money and Materiality in the Golden Age of Graphic Satire* (2022) examines caricature’s role in critiquing the expansion of paper money by the Bank of England and its social consequences, drawing parallels to similar financial controversies in the early U.S. These works collectively underscore caricature’s dual function as entertainment and political commentary during a formative period in Anglo-American history.