To the Person Sitting in Darkness

By: Mark Twain

Narrated by: Franklin Benjamin

Mark Twain’s essay, "To the Person Sitting in Darkness", was published in the North American Review in 1901. This dark satire exposes the imperialism behind the Chinese Boxer Uprising, the Boer War, and the Philippine-American War. In this, Twain's most famous anti-imperialist work, he indicts the brutalities of the British, French, German, Belgian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and American governments for their actions around the world. He also attacks the imperialist greed of missionaries like William Scott Ament, then-head of the American Board for Foreign Missions. The work reveals the cruelty of the Philippine-American War through news reports and the private letters of soldiers. "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" is Mark Twain’s most passionate denunciation of injustice and hypocrisy.

Public Domain (P)2019 Museum Audiobooks