"Gooch's acerbic account of his alleged sojourn in America should be read less as a travelogue than as a polemic against American life and customs, written to dissuade would-be English emigrants from crossing the Atlantic. Arranged by subject and based on both personal observations and newspaper stories, Gooch's account ridicules aspects of US life ranging from courtship customs to working conditions, from the electoral process to religious practices. Railing against slavery, corruption at the ballot box, treatment of the poor, and other injustices, Gooch decries "Republican America." In a well-researched introduction, Widdicombe sets the account in historical context, providing a useful biography of Gooch, as well as evidence casting doubt on whether Gooch actually visited the US at all. Even with its veracity in doubt, Gooch's account is still a highly readable, clever example of a segment of Tory opinion on America, and of what Widdicombe calls a "unique effort to reorient the British attitude to the United States at the dawn of the Victorian Age." General readers, lower-division undergraduates." -Choice "Widdicombe's scholarly apparatus shows brilliance and dedicated labor." -Journal of the American Studies Association of Texas
