Born in India in 1865, Kipling was a product of late nineteenth-century British imperialism, an expansionist policy that justified the economic benefits to be had in conquering undeveloped lands with a language of paternalism and benevolence.  In 1899, Kipling's poem, "White Man's Burden" (which was in fact addressed to Americans as they took control of the Philippines) revealed the racism inherent in imperialism and, historically, did much to tarnish Kipling's reputation. 

The purpose of British imperialism in the second half of the nineteenth century was to find a solution to longstanding economic depression in England.  The answer seemed to lie in the previously untapped natural and cultivated resources of other countries.   Many people shared Kipling's belief that the British were racially superior and that this supposed superiority obliged the British to impose their culture, government, and education system on other countries.  The...