Search

A diary recording the authors' extended tour of the Far East. It focuses on their impressions as the ancient civilizations of Japan, China and India, each in their separate ways, came to terms with the modern world.

"In 1898 Beatrice Webb, with her husband, the eminent Sidney Webb (co-founder of the Fabian Society), and a companion, Charles Trevelyan, visited the United States on one lap of a tour that took them also to Australia and New Zealand. An inveterate diarist, Mrs. Webb kept a detailed journal of her experiences and impressions, of which this is the American portion. Too provincial and too British to appreciate fully what she saw abroad, Mrs. Webb was, nevertheless, keenly perceptive, and her impressions are of great value because she brought an informed and intelligent mind from outside America to focus on her subject. Though sometimes superficial and frequently barbed, she is never dull and in many of her insights is ahead of her time. The current interest of the Webbs was in problems of city government, and they took pains to seek out and interview a number of people who were prominent or were later to become prominent in American affairs including Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John Peter Altgeld, Jane Addams, Lillian Wald, 'Czar' Reed, and numerous college professors"--Jacket.