In the essay, titled "Writing, Men, Empire: Kipling’s Medievalist Imagination," Utz analyzes examples from Rudyard Kipling's (1865—1936) poetry and prose. Through this examination, Utz argues that Kipling invented a masculinist medieval past to sway his largely young adult readership in defense of England’s imperialist agenda. 

“Numerous authors, artists, and politicians adhering to and reaffirming continuist British medievalism were attracted to the medieval past because it offered a safe alternative to the revolutionary political and cultural change in other countries’ paths to modernity,” Utz writes. “The omnipresent recourse to premodern ideals, models, and themes in Rudyard Kipling’s oeuvre reveals how he applied his own writerly craft in the service of maintaining a conservative ideal of Britain, one that would resist change to traditional gender roles, governance, and imperialist supremacy.”