The Politics Of Encounter

Abstract

The first number of Encounter was welcomed by the Times Literary Supplement in an editorial which included the following comment: "A possible criticism of the non-literary articles in Encounter has to do with the basic attitudes many of them express. These attitudes might be described as characterized by a negative liberalism, or a liberalism whose main positive features, at least, appears to be a hatred or a fear of Communism. . . ." It was, no doubt, mildly embarrassing for the editors of Encounter to have their major political premiss so clearly defied at this early stage of their journalistic career, but they had no cause for alarm. Encounter quickly established itself, and its public, which soon became large, was evidently content with the mixture of an American packaged liberalism and an appearance of liveliness on the literary side that was much helped by the general thinness of literary monthlies and quarterlies in post-war Britain.