Book details

American Studies

Author: Louis Menand

American Studies

American Studies

$11.99

About This Book

At each step of this journey through American cultural history, Louis Menand has an original point to make: he explains the real significance of William James's nervous breakdown, and of the anti-Semitism...

Page Count
320
Genre
On Sale
11/01/2003

Book Details

At each step of this journey through American cultural history, Louis Menand has an original point to make: he explains the real significance of William James's nervous breakdown, and of the anti-Semitism in T. S. Eliot's writing. He reveals the reasons for the remarkable commercial successes of William Shawn's New Yorker and William Paley's CBS. He uncovers the connection between Larry Flynt's Hustler and Jerry Falwell's evangelism, between the atom bomb and the Scholastic Aptitude Test. He locates the importance of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer, Pauline Kael, Christopher Lasch, and Rolling Stone magazine. And he lends an ear to Al Gore in the White House as the Starr Report is finally presented to the public.

Like his critically acclaimed bestseller, The Metaphysical Club, American Studies is intellectual and cultural history at its best: game and detached, with a strong curiosity about the political underpinnings of ideas and about the reasons successful ideas insinuate themselves into the culture at large. From one of our leading thinkers and critics, known both for his "sly wit and reportorial high-jinks [and] clarity and rigor" (The Nation), these essays are incisive, surprising, and impossible to put down.

Imprint Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

ISBN

9780374706012

In The News

“Fifteen essays: always intelligent, frequently interesting . . . Brilliant thinking . . . His intellectual range is limitless.” —Kirkus Reviews

“This book collects some of the most cogent and clearly articulated of those pieces, and reaffirms Menand's position as a preeminent historian of American liberalism's cultural incarnations.” —Publishers Weekly

“[A Collection That] Represents The Heart of Menand's Work . . . And Demonstrates His Status As His Generation's Premier Critical Talent” —Los Angeles Times

About the Creators

American Studies

American Studies

$11.99