War and the Intellectuals

Although he died at the age of thirty-two, Randolph Bourne (1886-1918) left a body of writing on politics, culture, and literature that made him one of the most influential American public intellectuals of the twentieth century and a hero of the American left. The twenty-eight essays in this volume -- among them, 'War and the Intellectuals', the analysis of the warfare state that made Bourne the foremost critic of American entry into World War I, and 'Trans-National America', his manifesto for cultural pluralism in America -- show Bourne at his most passionate and incisive as they trace his search for the true wellsprings of nationalism and American culture.