What I Saw in America
Overview
With the publication of What I Saw in America, Chesterton joins the ranks of Alexis de Tocqueville, Charles Dickens, and Abraham Kuyper and other prominent European literary and political figures to tour American and write about it. This volume contains dozens of reflections on American hospitality, business, politics; it concludes with three prescient essays on the spirit of America, the spirit of England, and the future of democracy.
Product Details
- Title: What I Saw in America
- Author: G. K. Chesterton
- Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
- Publication Date: 1922
- Pages: 297
About G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton was born in London in 1874. He worked at the Redway and T. Fisher Unwin publishing house until 1902, when he began writing regularly—his weekly columns appeared for decades in the Daily News and The Illustrated London News. In all, he wrote more than 80 books, hundreds of poems, 200 short stories, 4,000 essays. Among his writings are his famous apologetic work Orthodoxy, a biography of St. Aquinas, his Father Brown detective stories, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and The Man Who Was Thursday. He died on June 14, 1936 in Buckinghamshire.
Top Highlights
“The first principle is that nobody should be ashamed of thinking a thing funny because it is foreign; the second is that he should be ashamed of thinking it wrong because it is funny.” (Page 2)
“He may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about all men being equally tall or equally tricky; which we not only cannot believe but cannot believe in anybody believing. It is an absolute of morals by which all men have a value invariable and indestructible and a dignity as intangible as death.” (Page 17)
“It is the theory of equality. It is the pure classic conception that no man must aspire to be anything more than a citizen, and that no man should endure to be anything less.” (Page 16)
“Hence in international relations there is far too little laughing, and far too much sneering” (Page 2)
“They arm the President with the powers of a King, that he may be a nuisance in politics. We deprive the King even of the powers of a President, lest he should remind us of a politician.” (Page 121)
- Title: What I Saw in America
- Author: G. K. Chesterton
- Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
- Print Publication Date: 1922
- Logos Release Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: United States › Description and travel; United States › Social life and customs
- Resource ID: LLS:WHSAWINAMRCA
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T21:07:46Z
G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English author of various works, including his famous Orthodoxy. He worked at the Redway and T. Fisher Unwin publishing house until 1902, when he began writing regularly. His weekly columns appeared for decades in the Daily News and The Illustrated London News. In all, he wrote more than 80 books, hundreds of poems, 200 short stories, and 4,000 essays.
Among his other writings are biographies of St. Aquinas, the Father Brown detective stories, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and The Man Who Was Thursday. His famous Orthodoxy and several other titles including Heretics can be found in the G. K. Chesterton Collection (11 vols.).
