Reflection of Ideology and Politics in Travel Writing

Abstract

The chapter focuses on the ways in which politics and ideology are incorporated into travel writing. The analysis of two travel books involving the U.S. American and the Soviet Russian cultures, namely Little Golden America (One-Storied America, 1937) by Soviet humorists Ilf and Petrov, and A Russian Journal (1948) by American novelist John Steinbeck, reveals the two factors of importance influencing the depiction of politics and ideology in travel writing, namely the authors' identity including their personal ideologies and the polarity of bilateral political and ideological relations between the nations concerned. These two factors predetermine the specific issues of political and ideological nature described and explained in travel writing and the angle and character of their interpretation and evaluation by the authors.