I just read the Agatha Christie book, The Big Four.
It was published in 1927 and it is amazing what things were like back then in terms of scientific understanding and racism.
The author speaks of special energy rays, super-magnetic power, and the possibility that someone can use atomic power to cause great harm to the world. In the story, people get incinerated from a distance and submarines are dashed upon rocks and you are led to believe that some nefarious scientific device is to blame.
Asians are all profiled as having faces devoid of expression, eastern ways beyond understanding, called chinks, and mostly featured as servants, and if they are intelligent at all they are of a criminal mind.
Some other things to note...the copy that I read my mom has had for years. It is a paperback book with a renewed copyright in 1955 and the cover has the original price of 45 cents on it.
Posted by bbarton at November 13, 2004 11:32 AM