To the Person Sitting in Darkness

In February 1901, Mark Twain detonated a literary bomb beneath American imperialism. This scorching essay dissects the brutal aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion in China, the Boer War in South Africa, and the Philippine-American War, revealing the violence lurking beneath the rhetoric of "civilization" and "Christianity." Twain names names: President McKinley, British imperialist Joseph Chamberlain, and missionaries like William Scott Ament who led mob attacks against Chinese villages then demanded indemnities from their victims. The essay sparked a firestorm, with Twain defending his criticism of missionary conduct and fueling what became known as the Twain-Ament indemnities controversy. More than a century old, this polemic reads like it was written yesterday: the same justifications for empire, the same moral gymnastics, the same innocent populations caught between the cross and the flag. For readers who want to understand how America became an imperial power, and why some of its most celebrated writers refused to stay silent.