A collection of travel essays in which G. K. Chesterton records his impressions of America. He reflects on American democracy, cities, business life, Prohibition, and the contrasts between the American and English spirit. Worth reading for its witty, paradoxical observations on a rising nation.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
What I saw in America Printed in Great Britain by T. and A. Constable Ltd. at the Edinburgh University Press Contents WHAT IS AMERICA? A MEDITATION IN A NEW YORK HOTEL A MEDITATION IN BROADWAY IRISH AND OTHER INTERVIEWERS SOME AMERICAN CITIES IN THE AMERICAN COUNTRY THE AMERICAN BUSINESS MAN
PRESIDENTS AND PROBLEMS PROHIBITION IN FACT AND FANCY FADS AND PUBLIC OPINION THE EXTRAORDINARY AMERICAN THE REPUBLICAN IN THE RUINS IS THE ATLANTIC NARROWING? LINCOLN AND LOST CAUSES WELLS AND THE WORLD STATE A NEW MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA THE SPIRIT OF ENGLAND THE FUTURE OF DEMOCRACY What is America? I have never managed to lose my old conviction that travel narrows the mind. At least a man must make a double effort of moral humility and imaginative energy to prevent it from narrowing his mind. Indeed there is something touching and even tragic about the thought of the thoughtless tourist, who might have stayed at home loving Laplanders, embracing Chinamen, and clasping Patagonians to his heart in Hampstead or Surbiton, but for his blind and suicidal impulse to go and see what they looked like. This is not meant for nonsense; still less is it meant for the silliest sort of nonsense, which is cynicism. The human bond that he feels at home is not an illusion. On the contrary, it is rather an inner reality. Man is inside all men. In a real sense any man may be inside any men.
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