Force and Ideas

The acclaim for Lippmann the political thinker has at times obscured the equally impressive accomplishments of Lippmann the journalist. His output was prodigious, his influence on journalism significant. According to James Reston: "He has given a generation of newspapermen a wider vision of their duty." Early Writings provides a unique opportunity to rediscover this journalistic Lippmann and to observe the formative years of a brilliant mind.

In 1913, just three years out of Harvard, Lippmann was asked by Herbert Croly to help plan and edit a new "weekly of ideas," the New Republic. Beginning with its first issue in 1914 and continuing through the following six years, Lippmann wrote numerous signed and unsigned articles. Here are the best of them, written during the exciting political era that began with the trauma of World War I and ended in the stasis of Republican Normalcy.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., places Lippmann in historical context while recreating the intellectual ambiance of the Wilsonian era. His annotations identify little-remembered personages and clarify issues that time has befogged. But in another sense, the issues and personages of 1910-1920 are only too familiar. Our world is still a world of war, ineffectual international political organizations, disappointed idealism, nerve-wracking platitudes, social unrest, and slinking politicians.

Walter Lippmann a member of the fabled Harvard Class of 1910, wrote more than a dozen major books on political thought, including Liberty and the News, The Phantom Public, and American Inquisitors, all available from Transaction. His newspaper column, "Today and Tomorrow," was widely syndicated from 1931 until his retirement in 1967. This is the eighth Transaction publication of Lippmann's major writings.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. is Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he was previously professor of history at Harvard University, and special assistant to President John F. Kennedy. Among his books are The Age of Jackson, The Age of Roosevelt, A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, The Imperial Presidency, and The Cycles of American History.