ABSTRACT
After six years in America, Bertrand Russell was pleased to get back to England in 1944, where he took up an appointment at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was accorded a great welcome and students thronged to his lectures; a response which was in marked contrast to the hostility he had endured so recently in America. Russell was greatly relieved to be free from acrimonious controversy and was able to relax in the more tolerant atmosphere of England. “I enjoyed once more the freedom of discussion that prevailed in England but not in America,” he wrote, and added “In America, if a policeman addressed us, my young son burst into tears; and the same was true (mutatis mutandis) of university professors accused of speeding.” 1 The need to constantly defend himself in America was a considerable strain and as a consequence Russell found that returning to England served to modify his outlook for, “the less fanatical attitude of English people diminished my own fanaticism, and I rejoiced in the feeling of home.” 2
