Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad," Same Old/New Stuff

Love Mark Twain. Still hadn't read "The Innocents Abroad," so I picked up a copy real cheap on e-Bay.

Interesting.

The book was a best-seller. America loved it. Maybe for all the wrong reasons.

In "Innocents" Mark Twain writes as representative of a rich and xenophobic America as he enjoys a luxury cruise. He is annoyed by most people and dislikes some even more than others.

He slams the French, especially, but saves the worst of his venom for the Arabic people.

It seems that, to him, they are perilously close to being sub-human creatures.

Twain is quite adept at trashing them.

All this was quite remindful of the current state of America--this rampant animousity toward things French and things Muslim.

So..... the common and current and most ugly ill-will was alive and in robust health more than 100 years ago.

I (perhaps along with many others) tend to think of it as a more recent fad--a new rage--a dark flower of fashion that blossomed as gas prices went up in the 1970s and then hit full bloom with the 9/11 attack.

Naw.....America's hate and fear have far deeper and older roots, I guess.

Not many are chopping at those roots, either.