{"product_id":"2940015584509","title":"The Modern Traveller (Illustrated)","description":"Published in 1898, The Modern Traveller is not a travel book at all, but a brilliant satire (in verse) that attacks colonialism, explorer-journalists intent on fame and fortune, and British pretensions to moral superiority. Along with other travel accounts of the period, Belloc was undoubtedly parodying Henry Morton Stanley’s In Darkest Africa, 1890, which sold 150,000 copies within a few weeks of publication. (Stanley was the reporter who led a 7000 mile expedition through tropical jungle to find the Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingston in 1871.) The entire poem takes the form of an interview that the narrator of the story, an unscrupulous adventurer, gives to a journalist from the Daily Menace (probably a poke at the British newspaper, the Daily Mail). The narrator explains to his wide-eyed visitor how he teamed up with Commander Henry Sin, a foreign mercenary, and Captain William Blood, a commercial buccaneer, and embarked on an enterprising and patriotic expedition to the dark continent. Belloc has the narrator describe the dangers and hardships endured by these scoundrels, along with the narrator’s claims to personal heroism, so as to make it clear that most, if not all, of the account has been fabricated. Conveniently, Commander Sin and Captain Blood, perhaps also fictitious, do not survive the expedition to provide independent testimony. Belloc’s satire ends with the narrator boasting about how much he is being paid for his upcoming book.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJoseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters, and political activist. He is most notable for his Catholic faith, which had a strong impact on most of his works and his writing collaboration with G. K. Chesterton. He was President of the Oxford Union and later MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910. He was a noted disputant, with a number of long-running feuds, but also widely regarded as a humane and sympathetic man.\u003cbr\u003eHis most lasting legacy is probably his verse, which encompasses cautionary tales and religious poetry. Among his best-remembered poems are \"Jim, who ran away from his nurse, and was eaten by a lion\" and \"Matilda, who told lies and was burnt to death\".\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBelloc first came to public attention shortly after arriving at Balliol College, Oxford as a recent French army veteran. Attending his first debate of the Oxford Union Debating Society, he saw that the affirmative position was wretchedly and half-heartedly defended. As the debate drew to its conclusion and the division of the house was called, he rose from his seat in the audience, and delivered a vigorous, impromptu defense of the proposition. Belloc won that debate from the audience, as the division of the house then showed, and his reputation as a debater was established. He was later elected president of the Union. He held his own in debates there with F. E. Smith and John Buchan, the latter a friend.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe was at his most effective in the 1920s, on the attack against H. G. Wells' Outline of History, in which he criticized Wells' secular bias and his belief in evolution by means of natural selection, a theory that Belloc asserted had been completely discredited. Wells remarked that \"Debating Mr. Belloc is like arguing with a hailstorm\". Belloc's review of Outline of History famously observed that Wells' book was a powerful and well-written volume, \"up until the appearance of Man, that is, somewhere around page seven.\" Wells responded with a small book, Mr. Belloc Objects. Not to be outdone, Belloc followed with, \"Mr. Belloc Still Objects.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eG. G. Coulton, a keen and persistent academic opponent, wrote on Mr. Belloc on Medieval History in a 1920 article. After a long simmering feud, Belloc replied with a booklet, The Case of Dr. Coulton, in 1938.","brand":"Balefire Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47084488982768,"sku":"2940015584509","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940015584509_p0.jpg?v=1763622072","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015584509","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}