The Ugly American

Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 03.13.03 | 3:01 PM ET

Students of history and travel traditions should enjoy the March 10 issue of The New Yorker. One of the featured stories, The Unloved American, by Simon Schama, explores the long tradition of Europeans—tourists, writers, you name it—touring America and discovering that they didn’t always care for the people they encountered. Take Rudyard Kipling’s visit in 1889. He happened to be in Yellowstone on the Fourth of July when a party of American travelers began singing their nation’s praises, noting that they were “the greatest…richest…people on the face of the earth….” According to the story’s author, Kipling loved much about America but was “irritated by the relentless assurances that Americans seemed to require about their country’s incomparable virtue.”