James Burnham
American political theorist and philosopher
James Burnham was an American philosopher and political theorist who wrote The Managerial Revolution (1941). He moved from Trotskyist activism to the conservative movement.
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American Born 1905 in Chicago, United States Died 1987
Influenced by Niccolò Machiavelli, Karl Marx
About James Burnham
James Burnham (1905 to 1987) was born in Chicago, Illinois. He chaired the philosophy department at New York University, and his first book was An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis, published in 1931. In the 1930s he was a prominent activist in the American Trotskyist movement. He later broke with Marxism and became a theorist of the political right, and a leader within American conservatism. The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941, is his most famous book. He was an editor of William F. Buckley's magazine National Review and wrote for it regularly on many topics. He opposed containment of the Soviet Union and urged that communism be rolled back around the world.