Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy

by Lewis H. Lapham

Overview

America’s leading essayist on the frantic retreat of democracy, in the fire and smoke of the war on terror

In office as President of the United States, Donald J. Trump is undoubtedly a menace, but he isn’t a surprise. He embodies the spirit of an age of folly abandoned to conspicuous consumption of vanity and greed. A self-glorifying photo-op, Trump is made to the measure of an infotainment media in which presidential candidates are game show contestants brought to judgment on election day before the throne of cameras by whom and for whom they are produced.

To regard Trump as an amazement beyond belief is to give him credit where none is due, to mistake a symptom for the cause. Trump’s presence in the White House follows from an American regime change over the last twenty-five years during which a weakened but still operational democracy gave way to a stupefied and dysfunctional plutocracy.

The history of that change is a hedge against the despair of the present, making possible the revolt against what G. K. Chesterton called “the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784787134
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	10/11/2016
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	747,769
File size:	771 KB

About the Author

Lewis H. Lapham is the founding Editor of Lapham’s Quarterly and the Editor Emeritus of Harper’s. His columns received the National Magazine Award in 1995 for exhibiting “an exhilarating point of view in an age of conformity,” and, in 2002, the Thomas Paine Journalism Award. He was inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors’ Hall of Fame in 2007. His other books include Money and Class in America, Fortune’s Child, Imperial Masquerade, The Wish for Kings, Hotel America, Waiting for the Barbarians, Theater of War, The Agony of Mammon, Gag Rule, and Pretensions to Empire.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Part 1 Folly

1 Democracy in America? 3

2 Brave New World 18

3 Who and What Is American? 26

4 Versailles on the Potomac 39

5 Show and Tell 46

6 Reactionary Chic 53

7 Lights, Camera, Democracy! 73

8 The Dimpled Chad 81

9 Civics Lesson 89

10 Bolt From the Blue 97

11 Res Publica 109

12 American Jihad 116

13 Mythography 124

14 Spoils of War 132

15 Road to Babylon 140

16 Hail Caesar! 153

17 Light in the Window 161

18 Cause for Dissent 169

19 Shock and Awe 177

20 The Demonstration Effect 181

21 Dar al-Harb 189

22 Propaganda Mill 197

23 Condottieri 217

24 On Message 224

25 Lionhearts 232

26 Blowing Bubbles 239

27 Estate Sale 247

28 Elegy for a Rubber Stamp 255

29 In Broad Daylight 263

30 Achievetrons 270

31 Bombast Bursting in Air 277

Part 2 Folly's Antidote

32 Democracy 101 289

33 Crowd Control 308

34 Pennies From Heaven 319

35 Open to Inspection 332

36 The World in Time 347

Index 370

Editorial Reviews

Without doubt our greatest satirist—elegant, honorable, learned and fair. I love reading him.”
—Kurt Vonnegut

“Lewis Lapham—born of Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken—is the most provocative and engaging essayist in the country.”
—George Plimpton

“One of the last liberal thinkers, a man of elegant humor. Should he wander onto the premises of Fox TV, he’d surely be shot down like a dog.”
—Liz Smith

“Lapham’s indignation is ecumenical, his scorn spread as smoothly as butter from left to right and north to south across the face of contemporary America.”
—Boston Globe

“Lapham is a wonderful writer, a connoisseur of the perfect word.”
—Business Week

“The combination of Lapham’s urbane prose and lethal wit … makes for delightful reading.”
—Forbes

“To read Lapham’s work, so erudite and conscientious, is to realize that saving our democracy will take bold-face truth-telling, bravery and a populace willing to change: An alchemical improbability. However, if you can read this book and not want to commit to the work necessary to save our democracy, you are already lost.”
—Literary Hub

“Although frequently dark, The Age of Folly comes with much humor and elegant writing … Lapham’s sharp prose pricks the self-importance of the powerful, who too often parade with claim to omniscience and omnipotency … Highly recommended.”
—Choice

“[Illustrates] how and why our democracy has given way to a dysfunctional plutocracy of the super-rich, by the super-rich, and for the super-rich. Taken together, the book’s essays, published between 1990 and 2016 in Lapham’s Quarterly and Harper’s, serve as a powerful and alarming American history … With Age of Folly, Lapham provides the historical context needed to understand our current political moment.”
—Adam Boretz, The Millions

From the Publisher