Pros and Cons of Nationalism [1956]

THIS PAPER DATES from September 1956 but it remained unpublished until included five years later in Fact and Fiction (1961), pp. 127-35. It had been commissioned originally for the Sunday edition of The New York Times, whose London editor, Heather Bradley, wanted 2,500 words on nationalism-“what there is to be said for it, what there is to be said against it, and what you see as its future” (17 Sept. 1956). But Russell’s analysis failed to satisfy the New York office, and Bradley regretfully informed him on 5 October that, “since my editors feel that your recent article on Nationalism was more of an essay on Internationalism, they have decided against publishing it”. According to Edith Russell’s pencil note on the typescript carbon copy-text, the paper was then “sent to J.Medlock to be peddled”. Her letter of 7 November mentions the angry complaint which Russell had sent to Lester Markel, Sunday editor of The New York Times, but there is no extant copy of the latter correspondence. Russell’s American literary agent also quoted verbatim from a letter by Russell Lynes, editor of Harper’s.