Rudyard Kipling: Poems
How did imperialists think of the people in the countries they were taking over?
Rudyard Kipling, the white mans burdan, 1899
Rudyard Kipling, the white mans burdan, 1899
The poem exhorts the reader to take up the white man’s burden by sending the best of their country to dark, uncivilized places of the earth. There is a sense of heroism that white men take on in bringing civilization to the "savages" of the world.