Money and Class in America by Lewis H Lapman

Money and Class in America by Lewis H Lapman

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.

Lewis Lapham was born in San Francisco in 1935 and went to the Hotchkiss School, Yale University, and Cambridge University to further his education. He is the author of The Desire for Kings, Money and Class in America, Fortune's Child, Imperial Masquerade, Hotel America, and Waiting for the Barbarians, among other books of essays. He's worked as a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Herald Tribune, as a syndicated newspaper columnist, and as editor of Harper's Magazine since 1983, where his monthly pieces won a National Magazine Award in 1995 for their refreshing point of view in an age of conformity. He was the host and executive editor of Bookmark, a weekly national public-television series, from 1989 until 1991. He was also the host and author of American Century, a six-part documentary series that aired on public television in 1989. With his wife and three children, he lives in New York City.