Encyclopedia
The Nation is a
U.S. periodical devoted to politics and
culture, self-described as "the flagship of the left." The magazine is published weekly, except for the second week in January, and biweekly the third week of July through the second week of September. Founded on July 6, 1865 as an
Abolitionist publication, it is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the
United States. It is published by the Nation Company, L.P. at 33 Irving Place,
New York City.
The Nation has bureaus in
Budapest,
London, and Southern
Africa and departments covering
Architecture,
Art,
Corporations, Defense,
Environment,
Films,
Legal Affairs,
Music,
Peace and Disarmament,
Poetry, and the
United Nations. The circulation of
The Nation is rising and was last placed at 184,296 , surpassing the neoliberal
The New Republic, the
neoconservative The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative [i] political magazine [i] published 48 times per ...
, and the conservative
National Review is a biweekly magazine [i] of political opinion, founded by author William F. Buckley Jr. [i] ...
.
The Nation magazine has lost money in all but three or four years of operation and is sustained in part by a group of more than 25,000 donors called the Nation Associates who donate funds to the periodical above and beyond their annual subscription fees.
The publisher and editor of
The Nation is Katrina vanden Heuvel. Former editors include Victor Navasky,
Norman Thomas , Carey McWilliams, and Freda Kirchwey. Notable contributors to
The Nation have included
Albert Einstein,
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Gore Vidal,
Hunter S. Thompson,
Langston Hughes,
Ralph Nader, James Baldwin, Daniel Singer,
I.F. Stone, and
Jean-Paul Sartre.
Regular columns
- "Beat the Devil" by Alexander Cockburn
- "The Liberal Media" by Eric Alterman
- "Diary of a Mad Law Professor" by Patricia J. Williams
- "Subject to Debate" by Katha Pollitt
- "Look Out" by Naomi Klein
- "Deadline Poet" by Calvin Trillin
- The Nation cryptic crossword by Frank W. Lewis
Christopher Hitchens wrote the column "Minority Report" for twenty years; he resigned in 2003 over the magazine's ongoing anti-war position in relation to the
Iraq war and
War on Terror.
Notable recent events
The Nation Washington Editor, David Corn broke the
Valerie Plame leak scandal in the summer of 2003 in the pages of
The Nation after noting that journalist Robert Novak's blowing of the CIA operative's cover in a newspaper column could be a possible felony.
In a widely publicized and vocal break with the magazine, former columnist
Christopher Hitchens left
The Nation when it published a large number of letters from readers, who, Hitchens claimed, blamed
America for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In March 2005, the publication's
United Nations correspondent, Ian Williams, was the subject of adverse publicity for accepting money from the UN while covering it for
The Nation.
Fox News Channel, Accuracy in Media and FrontPage Magazine criticized Williams and the publication. He and The Nation denied wrongdoing.
In its November 28, 2005 issue,
The Nation issued an endorsement policy for political candidates that stated that they would only endorse candidates who oppose the war in Iraq.
History
Abolitionists founded
The Nation in July 1865 on "Newspaper Row" at 130 Nassau Street in
Manhattan. At the time, Joseph H. Richards was the publisher and E.L. Godkin, a
classical liberal critic of nationalism, imperialism, and socialism , was the editor. The magazine would stay at Newspaper Row for the next ninety years. Wendell Phillips Garrison, son of
William Lloyd Garrison, was literary editor of the periodical from 1865 to 1906.
In 1881, newspaperman-turned-railroad-baron
Henry Villard acquired
The Nation and converted it into a weekly literary supplement for his daily newspaper the
New York Evening Post. The offices of the magazine were moved to the
Evening Posts headquarters at 210 Broadway. The New York Evening Post
would later morph into a tabloid: the New York Post was a left-leaning afternoon tabloid under owner Dorothy Schiff from 1939 to 1976, and has been a conservative tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch since that time, while The Nation
became known for its left-liberal politics.
In 1918, Henry's Villard's son, Oswald Garrison Villard, took over as editor of the magazine and sold the Evening Post
. He remade The Nation
into a current affairs publication and gave it a liberal orientation. When Albert Jay Nock, not long later, published a column criticizing Samuel Gompers and trade unions for being complicit in the war machine of the First World War, The Nation
was briefly suspended.
The Nation
included women's movement activists amongst its contributors. For example, on 17 October 1934 The Nation published activist Alma Lutz's response to an earlier article. In 'Women & Wages' she argued that moves to establish a minimum wage for women and children were regressive and in conflict with women's right to economic independence, demeaning women by categorising them with children. Alma Lutz also expressed concern that minimum rates locked women into subsistence wages. In so providing an avenue for publication by feminist contributors,
The Nation ensured that its role as a current affairs leader was broad rather than narrowly based: Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt, 'The Struggle for Equal Pay & Pay Equity', PhD Thesis, University of New South Wales, Australia
New
Nation publisher Hamilton Fish and then-editor Victor Navasky moved the weekly to 72 Fifth Avenue in June 1979. In June 1998, the periodical had to move to make way for condominium development. The offices of
The Nation are now at 33 Irving Place.
Mission
According to
The Nations founding prospectus of 1865, "The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to bring to the discussion of political and social questions a really critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred."
Editorial Board
Norman Birnbaum, Richard Falk, Frances FitzGerald, Eric Foner,
Philip Green, Lani Guinier,
Tom Hayden, Randall Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Elinor Langer, Deborah Meier,
Toni Morrison, Victor Navasky, Richard Parker, Michael Pertschuk, Elizabeth Pochoda, Marcus G. Raskin, David Weir, and Roger Wilkins.
Notes
External links
Critical external links
