The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Victorian Age: Topic 4: Texts and Contexts

The Civilizing Mission

Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" (1899)

Rudyard Kipling (NAEL 8, 2.1793) wrote this poem just after Admiral Dewey's victory at Manila, which consolidated United States control over the Philippines. Kipling reminds the Americans of the imperial duties that all "white men" share, whatever their nationality.

Text of poem.

Race and Victorian Science
	Edward Tylor, Primitive Culture (1871)
	Benjamin Kidd, The Control of the Tropics (1898)
	J. J. Thomas, Froudacity (1889)
Colonialism and Gender
	Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1848)
	Anna Leonowens, The English Governess at the Siamese Court (1870)
	Josephine Butler, "Our Indian Fellow Subjects" (1887)
The Civilizing Mission
	Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Minute on Indian Education" (1835)
	Rudyard Kipling, "The White Man's Burden" (1899)
	Joseph Chamberlain, "The True Conception of Empire" (1897)