The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States, a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left". Founded on July 6, 1865, it is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City. It is associated with The Nation Institute.
The Nation has bureaus in Washington, D.C., London, and South Africa, with departments covering architecture, art, corporations, defense, environment, films, legal affairs, music, peace and disarmament, poetry, and the United Nations. Circulation peaked at 187,000 in 2006 but by 2010 had dropped to 145,000 in print, though digital subscriptions had risen to over 15,000.
History
The Nation was established in July 1865 on "Newspaper Row" at 130 Nassau Street in Manhattan. The publisher was Joseph H. Richards, and the editor was Edwin Lawrence Godkin, an immigrant from Ireland who had formerly worked as a correspondent of the London Daily News and The New York Times. Godkin, a classical liberal, sought to establish what one sympathetic commentator later characterized as "an organ of opinion characterized in its utterance by breadth and deliberation, an organ which should identify itself with causes, and which should give its support to parties primarily as representative of these causes."