Reviews for Green and chaste and foolish

The average rating for Green and chaste and foolish based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-02-01 00:00:00 Stephen Kinney This volume is out of print and tends to be priced pretty high online, but I was able to get it through interlibrary loan. I'm interested in the Philippine American War, and the way it is silenced in American history, so I was intrigued to learn that Mark Twain had been an outspoken opponent of it. This book is a collection of Twain's anti-imperialist writings, including published articles, but also letters and unpublished works. For the most part, I didn't find it that interesting--from the perspective of someone primarily interested in the Philippines, the content of the pieces tends to be just generically anti-imperialist, without engaging much in the specifics of the PAW. The strongest piece in the collection, for me, was an unpublished review of a biography of Emilio Aguinaldo, one of the revolutionary leaders of the Philippines. This piece really does engage with the specifics of Aguinaldo's life, and Twain draws an interesting analogy to orient an American reader--describing Aguinaldo's rise as the equivalent of a poor Black kid becoming a political leader in the Deep South. It's a shame this piece doesn't seem to be available elsewhere, as the rest of the book didn't rise to the same level of interest for me. I was also frustrated by one aspect of Twain's writings. In railing against imperialism, he often frames the issue as the "British/European" tradition of empire versus the "American" tradition of respecting others' self-determination, and criticizing the annexation of the Philippines and other territories as counter to American values. This, of course, ignores the entire history of America's violent annexation of the territories of Native people. I'd rather Twain have appealed to the self-determination ideal, which certainly is a part of American culture, while also recognizing that our history has very often fallen short of it.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-09-25 00:00:00 Shannon Smith In the final decade of his life, Mark Twain became the most visible spokesman for The American Anti-Imperialist League. This organisation was formed to oppose America's annexation and subjugation of the Philippines, and the Philippine-American War that accomplished that goal. Today, that most shameful of all American wars has been nearly blotted from memory, and along with it the memory of Mark Twain's principled and vigorous opposition to it. For that opposition, he was denigrated in the press, and called a traitor who should be hung by a prominent American general. This book collects in one place his writings on this topic. Collected here are not only pieces that he wrote and published at the time, but dinner speeches, newspaper interviews, personal letters, and pieces that he wrote that were too hot and bitter to be published during his lifetime and only appeared posthumously. Jim Zwick, the books editor, introduces each selection to give context, but to fully appreciate this book you will need to have some knowledge of the Philippine-American War and the American Anti-Imperialist League. (A quick primer on the subject can be found in The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire, by Stephen Kinzer.) This is not a happy Mark Twain book, nor, for the most part does it contain his first rate material. While some of his famous wit can be found, there is far more bitterness and naked anger here, the result of an old man full of disappointment and disgust at his country that had betrayed its ideals and even the most basic expectations of civilized behavior. This is a valuable book, however, for collecting all in one place his writings on a subject demonstrating the depth of his social consciousness, even as it shows the bitterness of the knowledge that he was supporting a righteous yet losing cause.