Randolph S. Bourne
Portrait from Randolph Bourne Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
These are works by the American radical journalist Randolph S. Bourne (1886–1918). Bourne was best known for his essays on art, politics and society, written for U.S. magazines, such as The Atlantic, The Masses, and especially The New Republic and The Seven Arts.
Bourne was deeply opposed to World War I, and was horrified to see former colleagues and mentors in the Progressive intellectual movement — such as John Dewey and Herbert Croly, embracing the War, conscription, and the Wilson administration’s repressive attacks on anti-war protesters. Many of his most famous essays, such as The War and the Intellectuals and his posthumous masterpiece, The State, grappled with the questions raised by widespread Progressive support for the War, and the psychological and social mechanisms that bound together war psychology and the ideal of the State.
Works available online at the Fair Use Repository
- The State (1918).
Writing from The Masses
- Law and Order (1912), in Masses (March 1912).
Writing from The New Republic
- The Price of Radicalism (review: Seymour Deming, The Pillar of Fire): reviewed by Randolph Bourne, in The New Republic (March 11, 1916). 161.
- What is Exploitation? (1916), in The New Republic (November 4, 1916). 12–14.
- H. L. Mencken (1917), in The New Republic (November 24, 1917). 102–103.
Writing from The Seven Arts Chronicle
- The War and the Intellectuals (1917), in Seven Arts, Vol. II (June 1917), 133–146.
- Below the Battle (1917), in Seven Arts, Vol. II, July, 1917. 270–277.
- A War Diary (1917), in Seven Arts, Vol. II (September, 1917). 535–547.
Writing about Randolph Bourne, by other authors.
- Randolph Bourne — obituary (1919), by Floyd Dell, in The New Republic (January 4, 1919). 276.