The organized bloodshed in Europe entered a new phase in February as the battle of Verdun began on the morning of February 21. In the U.S., antipathy to the war continued to predominate, but President Wilson was well into a commitment to gradually prepare the country’s relatively small army and navy for entry into conflict. […]
Tag Archives: World War I
As the war in Europe transformed into a virtual stalemate, American socialists intensified their discussions about the conflict and future prospects for the international socialist movement. The International Socialist Review continued to carry news from Europe as well as analysis of the ramifications of the capitulation of the International’s leaders to nationalism. The excerpt below […]
Randolph Bourne (1886-1918) was an important and, sadly, now little-known American literary and cultural figure. He was brought to my attention by Franklin Rosemont’s Jacques Vaché and the Roots of Surrealism (reviewed earlier on this blog). I provide here a link to a HathiTrust scanned image of his most enduring essay, “The War and the […]
Jacques Vaché and the Roots of Surrealism by Franklin Rosement (Charles H. Kerr, 2008, 388 pages) Rosa Luxemburg described World War I in these terms: “For the first time the destructive beasts that have been loosed by capitalist Europe over all other parts of the world have sprung with one awful leap, into the midst […]
Criticism &c. 