larry marshburne <[log in to unmask]> wrote: ... > I enjoyed both books. My question, finally, is what was the reception in > East Germany or other communist countries to this view of Twain. In _The Anti-Imperialist Reader_, vol. 2, _The Literary Anti-Imperialists_ (NY: Holmes & Meier, 1986) Philip S. Foner cited another German interpretation of Twain: Heimbrecht Breinig, "Mark Twain--Anti-Imperialist?" _Gulliver_ (Deutsch-Englische Jahrbucher) 9 (1981): 178-198. Foner summarizes: "Breinig argues that while Mark Twain's reputation as an anti-imperialist 'is well-deserved,' it has been 'exaggerated seen in the context of his lifelong endeavor to formulate his attitude with respect to such related concepts as savagism and civilization, primitivism and progressivism, Manifest Destiny, and imperialism in an extended sense.'" This sounds similar to Martin Green's interpretation in _Dreams of Adventure, Deeds of Empire_ (NY: Basic Books, 1979) which interprets Connecticut Yankee, Tom Sawyer, and Huck Finn as imperialist novels. While doing a bibliographic search a while back I also found references to several additional articles on turn-of-the-century anti-imperialist literature that probably include discussions of Twain (the library here doesn't have these and I've worn out my welcome at the interlibrary loan office so I haven't had a chance to look them up yet): Wustenhagen, Heinz. "American Literary Naturalism and Anti-Imperialist Movement and Thought." Wiss. Zeits. der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. Gesellschaftswissenschaftliche Reihe [East Germany] 33:4 (1984): 381-384. Ihde, Horst. "Origin and Significance of Anti-Imperialist Tendencies in the Literature of the USA." Same journal, pp. 343-348 Foner, Philip S. "Literary Anti-Imperialism in the United States at the Turn of the Twentieth Century." Same journal, pp. 349-355. Charles Neider's _Mark Twain and the Russians_ (Hill and Wang, 1960) is another interesting source on Communist interpretations during the Cold War. Howard Fast's novel, _Silas Timberman_ (NY: Blue Heron Press, 1954), is also interesting in its portrayal of a college professor who is forced to go before the House Un-American Affairs Committee after a series of events that starts with him using "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" as the central text of an American Lit. class. Fast was then the Communist Party USA's leading literary figure (he left the Party a couple of years later). I wonder if the Cold War-era elevation of Twain's anti-imperialist writings in Russia and Eastern Europe has stopped now. Certainly Twain's condemnation of the "Blessings-of-Civilization Trust" could be given an interesting twist after Russia and the US both participated in the Gulf War when George Bush claimed that "all the civilized nations were arrayed" against Iraq -- portrayed as "uncivilized" since Kuwait is not a democracy and we weren't "making the world safe for democracy." The rhetoric of that war was remarkably similar to what Twain criticised during the Philippine-American War 90 years earlier. Jim Zwick [log in to unmask] http://web.syr.edu/~fjzwick/