Kipling's Captains Courageous and the Anglo-Indian in America

The emphasis critics put on race, militarism and empire is common in Kipling studies. Captains Courageous, Kipling's tale of cod fishing, seems remote from such concerns yet is considered an imperialist text. Kipling claimed it was intended as a satire on the "grubby ideals" of the corporate class, their destruction of traditional ways of life such as those in the Anglo-India Kipling left behind. Most critics are unwilling to grant Kipling's assertion credence. Locating the book in the context of his American writing more broadly offers a new basis on which to revisit Kipling's claim and provides a fuller understanding of the novel's rarely remarked afterlife in 1890s America. It was a favourite of Theodore Roosevelt but also taken up by William James who was far removed from belligerent imperialists and hypercapitalists. A wider America of Kipling's imagining is found in Captains Courageous, one more complex than imperialist readings present. [150 words]