I just reread "Lost Horizon" (the book that introduced Shangri-La, an almost-magical Tibetan Buddhist monastery hidden from the world) for the first time since high school. It was incredibly popular book from 1933 when it was written up through the 70s, when I read it and it was adopted by the New Age movement.
I was startled at its aura of Kipling's "take up the white man's burden" that seemed perfectly reasonable to me at the time.
Sometimes re-reading books casts an unflattering light on your own past.
Spoiler:
The monastery was founded by a Frenchman and German, run by a Frenchman, and he decides to hand it over to a British guy who's been there for a few months rather than the locals who've been studying for decades to be monks, because Chinese and Tibetan people don't have the right attitude. There's a lot of talk about music but it's entirely about European composers, often using a harpsichord and a grand piano hauled in over the Himalayas by native porters.
The fact that I accepted all this as reasonable says something about my attitude at the time, which I think reflects society's attitude at the time. I hope my attitude has changed even if that of parts of society haven't.
It goes without saying that all the major characters are men except one sexually repressed British missionary for comic effect and a sexy young Chinese girl who acts as a love-interest McGuffin.
by GraniteGeekNH