Lewis Lapham – författare

Extensively expanded and revised, with a new foreword by Thomas Frank In the United States, happiness and wealth are often regarded as synonymous. Consumerism, greed, and the insatiable desire for more are American obsessions. In the native tradition of Twain, Veblen, and Mencken, the editor of Lapham's Quarterly here examines our fascination with the ubiquitous green goddess.Focusing on the wealthy sybarites of New York City, whom Lewis H. Lapham has been able to observe firsthand in their natural habitat, Money and Class in America is a caustic, and often hilarious, portrait of a segment of the American population who, in the thirty years since the book was originally written, have become only further removed—both in terms of wealth and social awareness—from everyone else.

The preeminent political essayist writes about the perversion of America's democratic legacy under George W. Bush—and makes a compelling case for impeachment.Lewis Lapham stands virtually alone among mainstream American journalists in having consistently seen through the fog of lies and narcissism surrounding the Bush administration from its earliest days in Washington. Pretensions to Empire brings together Lapham's trenchant political commentaries from his award-winning "Notebook" column in Harper's, giving us a complete picture of a presidency whose brazen abuses of power—and incompetence—have led the United States down a precipitous path, culminating in Lapham's eloquent case for impeachment.From a perspective deeply informed by history, Lapham's essays measure the current political moment against a backdrop of past events. Whether discussing the failure of the Bush administration's imperial project in Iraq, its shameless servitude to the country's corporate and religious minority and equally shameful ineptitude in responding to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, or the disturbing revelations of illegal domestic spying authorized by the president himself, Lapham perceives in George W. Bush and his allies a fundamental betrayal of the nation's democratic heritage.Written with the clarity of thought and elegance of prose that have become Lapham's signature style over the years, Pretensions to Empire is a brilliant and provocative work of political reportage.