Susan K. Harris

Passionate readers both, Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain courted through books, spelling out their expectations through literary references as they corresponded during their frequent separations. Surprisingly, in the process Olivia Langdon reveals herself not as a hypochondriacal hysteric, as many twentieth-century critics have portrayed her, but as a thoughtful intellectual, widely read in literature, history and modern science. Not so surprisingly, Samuel Clemens reveals himself as a critic and a sceptic, lampooning Langdon's physics lessons and her literary heroines. He also shows himself as an astute strategist, carefully manipulating Langdon and her parents. At the same time, Clemens's letters exhibit his own conservatism about women's nature and women's roles, while Langdon's show her carefully choosing from her culture's array of possible role models.

The Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain

When the U.S. liberated the Philippines from Spanish rule in 1898, the exploit was hailed at home as a great moral victory, an instance of Uncle Sam freeing an oppressed country from colonial tyranny. The next move, however, was hotly contested: should the U.S. annex the archipelago? The disputants did agree on one point: that the United States was divinely appointed to bring democracy--and with it, white Protestant culture--to the rest of the world. They were, in the words of U.S. Senator Albert Beveridge, "God's arbiters," a civilizing force with a righteous role to play on the world stage. Mining letters, speeches, textbooks, poems, political cartoons and other sources, Susan K. Harris examines the role of religious rhetoric and racial biases in the battle over annexation. She offers a provocative reading both of the debates' religious framework and of the evolution of Christian national identity within the U.S. The book brings to life the personalities who dominated the discussion, figures like the bellicose Beveridge and the segregationist Senator Benjamin Tillman. It also features voices from outside U.S. geopolitical boundaries that responded to the Americans' venture into global imperialism: among them England's "imperial" poet Rudyard Kipling, Nicaragua's poet/diplomat Rub?n Dar?o, and the Philippines' revolutionary leaders Emilio Aguinaldo and Apolinario Mabini. At the center of this dramatis personae stands Mark Twain, an influential partisan who was, for many, the embodiment of America. Twain had supported the initial intervention but quickly changed his mind, arguing that the U.S. decision to annex the archipelago was a betrayal of the very principles the U.S. claimed to promote. Written with verve and animated by a wide range of archival research, God's Arbiters reveals the roots of current debates over textbook content, evangelical politics, and American exceptionalism-shining light on our own times as it recreates the culture surrounding America's global mission at the turn into the twentieth century.

Americans and the Philippines, 1898 - 1902

God's Arbiters

"Winner of the Elizabeth Agee Prize in American literary studies Susan K. Harris retraced the journey of the literary icon as he made his way around the British Empire on his infamous 1895-1896 lecture tour. Part biography, part literary criticism, and part travel memoir, Harris' study offers a unique take on one of America's most widely studied writers while attempting to situate Mark Twain's social commentary within a contemporary worldview. As Harris makes her way through Australia, India, and South Africa-seeing for herself the people and places Twain experienced-she also undertakes a journey of self-exploration and what her relationship with Mark Twain means. After his disastrous investment in the Paige Compositor typesetting machine, Mark Twain found himself bankrupt. Determined to repay his debts, he undertook a thirteen-month lecture tour around the British Empire-visiting Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, India, Mauritius, and South Africa. After the tour, Twain published Following the Equator, a travelogue in which he recorded his observations and social commentary on the places he visited. Although Twain was generally known to criticize racism, bigotry, and imperialism, his financial situation meant he was willing to write to his audience's expectations in order to sell more books. This lead to the imbuement of Following the Equator with the racial and cultural biases of the era. Following the Equator went on to be a success, virtually propelling him out of debt, but now contemporary scholars and readers are left to make sense of Twain's often inconsistent observations, to figure out how to situate Twain's legacy in a new era. 'Mark Twain, the World, and Me' aims to do just that. More than 100 years after Twain's journey, Susan K. Harris follows him through Australia, India, and South America, tracing the themes and issues present in Following the Equator, addressing them head on, and using them as an occasion for comparing his era to our own. Her account covers a variety of topics, such as the conundrum that Hinduism presented to Protestant Americans of the 19th century, the clash of civilizations between Australian Aborigines and white settlers, the environmental devastation brought on by settler eradication policies, and more"--

Susan K. Harris

About

Books

Join the club