“The unfinished fragment on the state, which was to have been so great a book, is still a keen and impressive analysis of social psychology.... And after the self-styled peace what would Randolph Bourne have added, what doubly bitter denunciation, to the temperate ironies of these searching papers? Perhaps nothing but the tolerant smile of one who foresaw.” Marion Tyler
+ Socialist R 8:251 Mr ’20 550w
“Academically, his arguments may have been right, but it is obvious that they were uttered at a time when they must have proved the reverse of helpful. They may now be read with the dispassionate calm to which they are entitled, and they well repay careful consideration.”
+ Springf’d Republican p13a F 22 ’20 220w
“He proved right in many of the pronouncements which can now be weighed against actual happenings; and for this reason there is hope that a kindly hearing may yet be given to the essays here reprinted.”
+ Survey 44:291 My 22 ’20 150w
“These papers are overshadowed by the war; and as the war figured in Bourne’s outlook as a tragic impertinence which had rudely choked the young shoots of a new life in America with which his dearest hopes were bound up, there is a steady undertow of resentment which disturbs the balance of his thought. But all the same, these papers were worth printing as a historical document to show the generations to come how the war struck a profound and honest mind that had enthroned the spirit of life and was already seeing afar off the triumph of life over the forces of death.” R. R.
+ − World Tomorrow 3:157 My ’20 160w
“He could write—there is no question about that—and he could think, but these two fine qualities do not excuse the fact that his first principles are nearly always wrong.” M. F. Egan
− + Yale R n s 10:188 O ’20 380w