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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 November 2010
The intellectual and cultural critic Randolph Bourne originated the concept of a “transnational America” in 1916. More than a mere label, “trans-national America” was the articulation of Bourne's visionary new form of pluralism. This article aims to rethink Bourne's transnationalism as a form of isolationist antiwar idealism, thus helping to bridge his writings on domestic reform and foreign policy. Further, it illuminates an important moment in the intellectual history of isolationism as it assumed a positive, pluralist cast. This analysis also opens new vistas onto the development of a wide-ranging liberal opposition to American entry into World War I. Bourne's potent pluralistic, cosmopolitan ideas and the actions he took—along with those of other antiwar activists, politicians, and thinkers—helped to set the ideological parameters for antiwar thought in the period from 1916 to 1918 as well as for later American dissent, particularly in wartime.
2 Bourne's report to the Trustees of Columbia University evaluating his Gilder fellowship for thirteen months of European travel, “Impressions of Europe, 1913–1914: Report to the Trustees of Columbia University,” Columbia University Quarterly 17 (March, 1915): 109–26,Google Scholarrepr. in , Bourne, The History of a Literary Radical and Other Papers, ed. Brooks, Van Wyck (New York, 1956), quotation 100Google Scholar;re: his time in Germany, 97–100. See Bourne-Macmahon correspondence, Randolph Silliman Bourne Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University [Hereafter BP], box 10. Macmahon later returned to his alma mater and became a prominent professor of public administration.
3 “Impressions of Europe, 1913–1914,” 100.
4 Ibid., 75. Bourne provided several accounts of his travels in Europe; for more on Bourne's initial sense of his time abroad, see: “Impressions of a European Tour,” which he published in several installments in his hometown paper The Citizen (Bloomfield, NJ, 1913-1914); andGoogle Scholar, Bourne, “Berlin in War Time,” Travel, Nov. 1914, 58–59Google Scholar.
5 , Bourne, “Trans-National America,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1916,Google Scholarrepr. in Bourne, Randolph, The Radical Will, Selected Writings, 1911–1918, ed. Hansen, Olaf, (Berkeley, CA, 1977): 248–64,Google Scholarquotation 248.
6 Ibid., 248.
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8 Bourne described his ideal “beloved” radical society in his semiautobiographical Youth and Life (Boston, 1913), 291.Google ScholarVitelli, James R., Randolph Bourne (Boston, 1981), 155, 158Google Scholar;Vaughan, Leslie J., Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism (Lawrence, KS 1997), 5–6; see alsoGoogle Scholar, Blake, Beloved Community,Google ScholarClayton, BruceForgotten Prophet: The Life of Randolph Bourne (Baton Rouge, 1984)Google Scholar;Moreau, John Adam, Randolph Bourne: Legend and Reality (Washington, 1966).Google ScholarBlake, Casey, “Randolph Bourne” in A Companion to American Thought, ed. Fox, Richard Wightman and Kloppenberg, James T. (Oxford, 1998), 85–87Google Scholar.
9 Lasch, Christopher, The New Radicalism in America, 1889–1963: The Intellectual as Social Type (New York, 1965), 81.Google ScholarLasch remarks that Bourne's letters from Europe do not give “a hint” of the conflict swirling around him. Yet his letters in combination with the “impressions” he reported upon returning from Europe demonstrate that Bourne was aware of European nationalism during and after his travels. He and Macmahon changed plans several times because of the war. When the war began, the two men cut short their time in Germany and returned home early.
10 , Blake, Beloved Community, ch. 3.Google Scholar
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13 Randolph Bourne to Van Wyck Brooks, Mar. 27, 1918, BP, box 2.
14 Bourne to Alyse Gregory, Aug. 25, 1914, BP, box 3.
15 Bourne to Gregory, Sept. 28, 1914, BP, box 3. For Bourne as a“double martyr” see Beringause, A. F., “The Double Martyrdom of Randolph Bourne” Journal of the History of Ideas 18 (Oct. 1957): 594–603CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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17 Croly to Bourne, June 3, 1914, BP, box 3.
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26 Baker, Ray Stannard and Dodd, William E., eds., The Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson, vol. 3 (New York, 1925-1927),Google Scholarquotation on 226.
27 Abrahams, Edward, The Lyrical Left: Randolph Bourne, Alfred Stieglitz and the Origins of Cultural Radicalism in America (Charlottesville, VA, 1986),Google Scholarpreface;Blake, Casey, “The Young Intellectuals and the Culture of Personality” American Uterary History 1 (Autumn 1989): 510–34Google Scholar.
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29 Ibid.
30 Bourne to Gregory, Aug. 30, 1915, BP, box 3.
31 , Bourne, “Trans-National America” Radical Will, 264.Google Scholar
32 Ibid., 249.
33 Ibid., 263–64.
34 Bourne's ideas about how to achieve a transnational United States share much with Reinhold Niebuhr's later vision of a “cosmopolitan” society.
35 Bourne reading notebook, partial list for 1916, BP, box 8.Angell, Norman, America and the New World State: A Plea for American Leadership in International Organisation (New York, 1915)Google Scholar.
36 Bourne to Simon Pelham Barr, Dec. 14, 1913, BP, box 1; the letter to Barr was written while Bourne traveled in France.Angell, Norman, “Economic Coercion” and “On Differential Neutrality for America” in Towards an Enduring Peace: A Symposium of Peace Proposals and Programs, 1914–1916, ed. Bourne, Randolph (New York, 1916), 184–88, 326–32Google Scholar.
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42 , Angell, Great Illusion, 392.Google Scholar
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50 Ibid., 263.
51 Ibid., 262–63.
52 Ibid., 262.
53 Ibid., 251, 256, 262.
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60 , Hansen, Radical Will, 35; seeGoogle Scholar, Bourne, “Trans-National America.”Google ScholarOn cosmopolitan ideals and their relationship to the concept of ethnic diversity, see , Hollinger, “Ethnic Diversity” 56–73.Google ScholarOn Kallen and pluralism, see Sollors, Werner, “A Critique of Pure Pluralism” in Reconstructing American Literary History, ed. Bercovitch, Sacvan (Cambridge, MA, 1986), 250–79Google Scholar.
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62 Ibid., 3.
63 Ibid., 1.
64 Ibid., 3.
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66 Ibid., 6.
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70 Bourne, Randolph, “The Collapse of American Strategy” in World of Randolph Bourne, 166.Google ScholarThis essay was first published in Seven Arts, Aug. 1917, 409–24Google Scholar.
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72 Bourne to Benjamin Everett, Nov. 26, 1917, BP, box 1.
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78 Ibid., quotations on 189–90.
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95 Hansen, Jonathan, The host Promise of Patriotism: Debating American Identity, 1890–1920 (Chicago, 2003), 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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104 Boume to Brooks, Nov. n.d., 1918, BP, box 2.
105 Bourne to Sara Bourne, Nov. 21, 1918, filed under “letters to his mother” BP, box 1.
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107 I also am thinking of Leon Wieseltier, Paul Berman, Todd Gitlin, George Packer, Sean Wilentz, and Cornel West, among the diverse camp of contemporary liberal critics of United States military ventures who have invoked elements of a Bournian cosmopolitan isolationist antiwar logic. Tracking this intellectual genealogy is a worthy project far beyond the scope of this article, but for a representative sample see:Ignatieff, Michael, “A Mess of Intervention: Peacekeeping, Pre-Emption, Liberation, Revenge. When Should We Send in the Troops?” New York Times Magazine, Sept. 7, 2003,Google Scholarcover story;, Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (New York, 2004)Google Scholar;Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 3rd ed. (New York, 2000)Google Scholar;, Walzer, Arguing About War (New Haven, 2004)Google Scholar;, Lasch, New Radicalism, 69–103;Google ScholarChomsky, Noam, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (New York, 2006)Google Scholar;, Chomsky, Hegemony and Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (repr. New York, 2004)Google Scholar;Chomsky's stance goes back to his opposition to Vietnam-era interventionism, as articulated in works such as American Power and the New Mandarins (New York, 1969),Google Scholarwhich includes a provocative essay “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” 323–66, affirming Bourne's arguments against those of elite status and insisting that ideological “pragmatism” can precipitate facile manipulations of the intellectual commitment to truth. Members of the New Left ridiculed the purported “pragmatic” rationale of intellectuals supporting the war in Vietnam. The Old Left seems to have been the first to have appropriated the Bourne legacy; see Kazin, Alfred, Starting Out in the Thirties (Ithaca, NY, 1989), 136–37Google Scholar.
108 See Randolph Bourne Institute mission statement, <http://randolphbourne.org> (Sept. 12, 2005). An excellent place to start on the modern legacy of Bourne is Columbia University's symposium, Randolph Bourne's America, Oct. 11, 2004.Google ScholarTalks that day by Robert Westbrook, Jonathan Hansen, Christopher Lehmann, Christopher Phelps, and others addressed the contemporary relevance and long intellectual-historical frame that Bourne's thought helped to establish for those opposing American intervention abroad. For a text version of most speeches, see: <http://www.dkv.columbia.edu/w0410/>. Most helpful are the minutes for“Panel 1—Bourne: The Historical View.” Westbrook's talk, revised in light of recent events, appeared as “Bourne over Baghdad” Raritan 27 (Summer 2007): 104–17.Google ScholarOn the Bournian legacy, see , Clayton, Forgotten Prophet, 260–66Google Scholar.
109 For a recent perspective on these developments, Friedman, Thomas, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century, rev. ed. (New York, 2006)Google Scholar.
