ABSTRACT
Some of Twain’s sharpest barbs were aimed at Belgium’s exploitation of the Congo in equatorial Africa. The “Congo Free State” had been designated the personal fiefdom of the King of Belgium by the European powers at an 1884-1885 conference on the division of Africa, held in Berlin. In the pamphlet King Leopold’s soliloquy (1905), Twain images King Leopold delivering an incoherent defense of imperialism as the agent of religion, civilization, and modernization. In a 1905 interview published in the Boston Herald, Twain charged,
In 1900, while the United States was engaged in establishing a colonial empire in East Asia and the Caribbean, Mark Twain (1900) declared “I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” The closer you get to the present, the more likely personal views on events in the past and present will influence the way a social studies teacher designs the curriculum, selects documents, organizes lessons, and asks questions. While the major imperialist powers during the second wave of global integration were European countries, how students and teachers view events in this period is very much shaped by how they view what is taking place today. For example, when United States President George W. Bush (2001) made the following statement in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, was he promoting the spread of democratic institutions or defending an imperialist agenda?
