Literary politics

Why read criticism of Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling these days? Jonah Raskin, a professor at Sonoma State University, provides provocative answers in this new edition of his 1971 book, now reissued by Monthly Review Press. Subtitled A Revolutionary Critique of British Literature and Society in the Modern Age, it includes a new preface by Bruce Robbins. Raskin depicts Kipling as the “great compromiser” with British imperialism, while Conrad was a “dialectician” wrestling with class, gender and race conflict among and between Europeans and native peoples. E.M. Forster insisted that “art stands still” and D.H. Lawrence’s work pulsated with a reality-based vitality. Raskin’s afterword on the late Edward W. Said, a powerful voice for the Palestinian people, sparkles. Both men were Ivy Leaguers, allies in the movements to decolonize the Third World after World War II. Want to unpack the links between literature and empire? Read The Mythology of Imperialism.