Alexander Cockburn

Columnist

Alexander Cockburn, The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist and one of America's best-known radical journalists, was born in Scotland and grew up in Ireland. He graduated from Oxford in 1963 with a degree in English literature and language.

After two years as an editor at the Times Literary Supplement, he worked at the New Left Review and The New Statesman, and co-edited two Penguin volumes, on trade unions and on the student movement.

A permanent resident of the United States since 1973, Cockburn wrote for many years for The Village Voice about the press and politics. Since then he has contributed to many publications including The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and the Wall Street Journal (where he had a regular column from 1980 to 1990), as well as alternative publications such as In These Times and the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

He has written "Beat the Devil" since 1984.

He is co-editor, with Jeffrey St Clair, of the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch(http://www.counterpunch.org) which have a substantial world audience. In 1987 he published a best-selling collection of essays, Corruptions of Empire, and two years later co-wrote, with Susanna Hecht, The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers, and Defenders of the Amazon (both Verso). In 1995 Verso also published his diary of the late 80s, early 90s and the fall of Communism, The Golden Age Is In Us. With Ken Silverstein he wrote Washington Babylon; with Jeffrey St. Clair he has written or coedited several books including: Whiteout, The CIA, Drugs and the Press; The Politics of Anti-Semitism; Imperial Crusades; Al Gore, A User's Manual; Five Days That Shook the World; and A Dime's Worth of Difference, about the two-party system in America.

 

 

Letters Letters

FOG OF WAR: NOT 'A REAL PASTING'

New York City

Mar 11, 2004 / Alexander Cockburn, Our Readers, and Immanuel Wallerstein

Understanding the World With Paul Sweezy Understanding the World With Paul Sweezy

I'm an optimist by disposition, but some weeks it's hard to find evidence of progress in human affairs.

Mar 4, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

Springtime for Hitler? Springtime for Hitler?

The editor's note "disagreeing profoundly" with Alexander Cockburn's January 26 "Beat

Feb 26, 2004 / Alexander Cockburn and Our Readers

Kerry: He’s Peaking Kerry: He’s Peaking

Kerry has the nomination almost within his grasp, and has also emerged from the bruising kiss of imputed scandal. Unless Ms.

Feb 19, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

McNamara: The Sequel McNamara: The Sequel

Apparently to McNamara's mortification, Errol Morris, whose film The Fog of War I discussed in my last column here, passes over his subject's thirteen-year stint running the Worl...

Feb 5, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Cockburn

The Fog of Cop-Out The Fog of Cop-Out

My dear friend and late Nation colleague Andrew Kopkind liked to tell how, skiing in Aspen at the height of the Vietnam War, he came round a bend and saw another skier, Defense S...

Jan 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Cockburn

Bush as Hitler? Let’s Be Fair Bush as Hitler? Let’s Be Fair

Editor's Note: The Nation gives its columnists the widest possible latitude and, as readers know, their views are not always those of the magazine. In this instance, however, the e...

Jan 8, 2004 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

How to Kill Saddam How to Kill Saddam

The last time I saw pictures of a man in need of a haircut being displayed as a trophy of the American Empire it was Che Guevara, stretched out dead on a table in Vallegrande, a ...

Dec 18, 2003 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

It Should Be Late, It Was Never Great It Should Be Late, It Was Never Great

Khrushchev wrote in his incomparable memoirs that Soviet admirals, like admirals everywhere, loved battleships because they could get piped aboard in great style amid the respect...

Dec 4, 2003 / Column / Alexander Cockburn

Letters Letters

IRAQ--'CAPITALIST DREAM'

Brookline, Mass.

Nov 25, 2003 / Alexander Cockburn, Naomi Klein, Our Readers, and Esther Kaplan

Go to archive page 11 … Go to archive page 1717 Go to archive page 1818 Go to archive page 1919 Go to archive page 2020 Go to archive page 2121 … Go to archive page 3030
x