• American Notes by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

  • By: ciesse
  • Podcast

American Notes by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

By: ciesse
  • Summary

  • In American Notes, Rudyard Kipling, the Nobel Prize-winning author of the Jungle Book, visits the USA. As the travel-diary of an Anglo-Indian Imperialist visiting the USA, these American Notes offer an interesting view of America in the 1880s.

    Kipling affects a wide-eyed innocence, and expresses astonishment at features of American life that differ from his own, not least the freedom (and attraction) of American women. However, he scorns the political machines that made a mockery of American democracy, and while exhibiting the racist attitudes that made him controversial in the 20th century concludes “It is not good to be a negro in the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

    G. A. England of Harvard University (letter to The New York Times 10/11/1902) wrote: “To the American temperament, the gentleman who throws stones while himself living in a glass house cannot fail to be amusing; the more so if, as in Mr Kipling’s case, he appears to be in a state of maiden innocence regarding the structure of his own domicile.”

    (Summary by Tim Bulkeley with Quotations from the Gutenberg edition of American Notes and the online version of The New York Times of October 11th 1902.)
    Copyright ciesse
    Show more Show less
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2
Episodes
  • Chicago
    Sep 24 2024
    23 mins
  • America's Defenceless Coasts
    23 mins
  • American Politics
    28 mins

What listeners say about American Notes by Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.