Intellectuals And World War I

This volume considers intellectuals within the social history of World War I. It offers a reflection on intellectuals' stance toward militarism and the outbreak of war. It examines their reactions, thoughts, and predictions and the ways in which they interpreted the meaning of the war, as well as how they saw the possibilities of the postwar era.

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.

Those surveyed: Hugo Münsterberg, George Sylvester Viereck, Hermann Hagedorn.

The First World War changed the dynamics of the European intellectual landscape in terms of international collaboration, the development of disciplines, and new institutional visions. The conflict not only destroyed much of Europe's material cultural heritage, it also damaged the 19th-century humanist conception of the function of thought, and it problematised the position of the thinker in society. What is the intellectual's task in a time of destruction and death? This book spotlights the ways in which the war redrew the map of knowledge production and changed traditional paradigms, fundamentally altering the approach to intellectual work. Thinking became more democratic and specialised, with a range of voices tackling specific problems created by the war, but now more conspicuously related to particular causes. The focus on the viewpoints of the 1914-1918 intellectual cadre throws into perspective the ways in which the war changed the contents, methods, and organisation of intellectual work. Part One looks at the war as an object of study; Part Two explores the methodological challenges the war entailed; and Part Three sheds light on the ways in which the conflict and its aftermath redrew the map of collaborative intellectual networks. The case studies come from different disciplines and cover a range of contexts, from German engineering to British wartime periodicals. Revisiting the early 20th-century intellectual situation not only enriches our understanding of the dynamics of the Great War, it also assists in repositioning the role of the intellectual in the 21st century. Subject: World War I, History, Intellectual History]