"The lesser evil": Orwell and America

George Orwell is often assumed to have been uninterested in the United States with his thinking immune to any American influences. This neglects his interest in American literature, in particular his concern with the work of Mark Twain, Jack London and Henry Miller. During the Second World War, he came under the influence of the US magazine, Partisan Review, for which he wrote his ‘London Letters’. Even though he considered the USA politically backward, in the post-war years he came to the reluctant conclusion that if the choice was between a world dominated by Soviet Union or the USA, he would prefer the USA, although he hoped for a Socialist revival as offering an alternative