The Innocents Abroad is one of the most prominent and influential travel books e
ver written about Europe and the Holy Land. In it, the collision of the American
"New Barbarians" and the European "Old World" provides much comic fodder for Ma
rk Twain-and a remarkably perceptive lens on the human condition. Gleefully skew
ering the ethos of American tourism in Europe, Twain's lively satire ultimately
reveals just what it is that defines cultural identity. As Twain himself points
out, "Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by
vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." And Jane Jaco
bs observes in her Introduction, "If the reader is American, he may also find hi
mself on a tour of his own psyche."
