I was reading a New York Times book review (May 12, 2013) called “On the Brink” by Harold Evans as he talks about two books which survey the causes of World War I. Evans notes that in his The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 Christopher Clark says that scholars writing about gender have described a “crisis of masculinity” during this time and Clark argues that this underpinned the actions and decisions of  the male leaders of Great Britain, Russian Germany, etc. Evans quotes from Clark: “competition from subordinate and marginalized masculinities — proletarian and nonwhite for example.” This made me think immediately of how non Englishmen are portrayed in Stoker’s novel Dracula as a threat to English power, patriarchy, and sexuality. Characters that spring to mind are Dracula, Quincey Morris, the Russian captain of the Demeter. The Englishmen, Holmwood, Harker, Seward, are lauded for their strength, self-control, rationalism, firmness of purpose.