"The Offensive Art" is an arch and sometimes caustic look at the art of political satire as practiced in democratic, monarchical, and authoritarian societies around the world over the past century-together with the efforts by governmental, religious, and corporate authorities to suppress it by censorship, intimidation, policy, and fatwa. Examples are drawn from the full spectrum of satiric genres, including novels, plays, verse, songs, essays, cartoons, cabarets and revues, movies, television, and the Internet. The multicultural and multimedia breadth and historical depth of Freedman's...