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Randolph Bourne

"War is the health of the State."

Randolph Bourne (1886–1918)
Critic
Columbia College 1912, MA 1914

Randolph Bourne (1886-1918) was one of the most important and influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. He was a leader of the Greenwich Village renaissance of the 1910s, a cultural critic who wrote on virtually every aspect of modern culture, an educational reformer, a pragmatist who became a penetrating critic of pragmatism, an early writer on disabilities, a prophet of a "Trans-national America," and an antiwar writer. His life and work figure prominently in virtually every major work of U.S. intellectual history, and his writings continue to inspire contemporary political and cultural debates. (An event honoring Bourne and his legacy will be held in October 2004, sponsored by the American studies program, the National Arts Journalism Program, Columbia 250, and PEN.)

Submitted by Casey Blake, faculty, who is solely responsible for the content.

Read more about this nominee in Columbians Ahead of Their Time.

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