Title: Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World
Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Dover
Year: 1897/1979
712 pages
Not quite as enjoyable as Twain's The Innocents Abroad. The latter is more pitched toward travelogue, whereas this is a blend of travel, history, politics, and amusing digressions. This is not to say that it's not a good book, but that it ranges about in a way that readers of Oliver Sacks's Oaxaca Journal may recognize.
Readers who complain of Twain's racism seem to me to be missing the point. Give that this is a man whose childhood was before the US Civil War, he is remarkably respectful and appreciative of the people he meets. What some readers seem to miss is that he exaggerates for effect; that the effect sought is to render the racist/colonial/imperialist perspectives of the majority people absurd through exaggeration; and that he mocks everyone. I'm not suggesting that some of his comments aren't problematic by today's standards, but they are less so than much of what I read in US newspapers.
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