James Burnham

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James Burnham (1905-1987) was a leading American conservative of the the 1950s, and an editor of National Review magazine.

He is best known as a proponent of Rollback against Soviet Communism, which he promoted in the late 1940s. Opponents warned it would lead to nuclear war. It was adopted by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and Soviet Communism collapsed.

In the 1930s he was a Communist of the Trotskyite anti-Soviet variety, but was attacked by Trotsky himself and expelled by the Socialist Workers Party in 1940.

Further reading

  • Francis, Samuel. James Burnham: Thinkers of Our Time‎ (2nd ed. 1999) 164 pages
    • previously published as Power and history: the political thought of James Burnham‎ (1984)
  • Kelly, Daniel. James Burnham and the struggle for the world: a life (2002) 443 pages; the standard scholarly biography

Primary Sources

  • Burnham, James. The Managerial Revolution: Or What is Happening in the World Now (1940), highly influential study of capitalism
  • Burnham, James. The Struggle for the World (1947)
  • Burnham, James. The Coming Defeat of Communism (1950)
  • Burnham, James. Containment or Liberation? (1952).
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