Lewis Lapham and Thomas Frank Forecast the Next American Revolution

BLANK May 5, 2014 The Harper's Magazine associates have had their eyes on America and its moneyed rulers for a combined nine decades. In a bookstore conversation about the latest issue of Lapham's Quarterly, they name the forces conspiring to drive the nation into another age of upheaval. Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

How ‘Revolution’ Became an Adjective

By Lewis Lapham, TomDispatch Mar 17, 2014 For the last several years, the word has been hanging around backstage on the national television talk-show circuit waiting for somebody, anybody -- visionary poet, unemployed automobile worker, late-night comedian -- to cue its appearance on camera. Dig deeper ( 15 Min. Read )

The Solid Nonpareil

By Lewis Lapham, TomDispatch Dec 20, 2013 Laughter was Mark Twain’s stock in trade, and for 30 years as bestselling author and star attraction on America’s late-nineteenth-century lecture stage, he produced it in sufficient quantity to make bearable the acquaintance with grief that he knew to be generously distributed among all present in the Boston Lyceum or a Tennessee saloon. Dig deeper ( 13 Min. Read )

Selling Death

By Lewis Lapham, TomDispatch Sep 26, 2013 The question “Why can’t I live forever?” assigns the custody of one’s death to powers that make it their business to promote and instill the fear of it—to church or state, to an alchemist or an engineer. Dig deeper ( 13 Min. Read )

The (Less Than) Eternal Sea

By Lewis Lapham, TomDispatch Jun 4, 2013 Happily aloft in the vicinity of my father’s hat, and the weather having cleared since the Ohioan missed its compass heading, I was free to form my earliest impression of the sea at a safe and sunny distance, lulled by the sound of waves breaking on the beach, delighting in the drift of gulls in a bright blue sky. Dig deeper ( 14 Min. Read )

The Conquest of Nature (and What We’ve Lost)

By Lewis Lapham, TomDispatch Mar 13, 2013 However it so happens that the beasts manage to live not only at ease within the great chain of being but also in concert with the tides and the season and the presence of death, it is the great lesson they teach to humanity. Dig deeper ( 13 Min. Read )

Raiding Consciousness: Why the War on Drugs Is a War on Human Nature

By Lewis Lapham, TomDispatch Dec 11, 2012 The question that tempts mankind to the use of substances controlled and uncontrolled is next of kin to Hamlet's: to be, or not to be, someone or somewhere else. Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

Feast of Fools

By Lewis H. Lapham, TomDispatch Sep 21, 2012 The campaigns don’t favor the voters with the gratitude and respect owed to their standing as valuable citizens participating in making such a thing as a common good. They stay on message with their parsing of democracy as the ancient Greek name for the American Express card. Dig deeper ( 14 Min. Read )

Will Wonders Never Cease?

By Lewis Lapham, TomDispatch Jun 30, 2012 What once was sorcery maybe now is science, but the wonders technological of which I find myself in full possession, among them indoor plumbing and electric light, I incline to regard as demonstrations magical. Dig deeper ( 12 Min. Read )

The Internet as the Toy With a Tin Ear

By Lewis Lapham, Lapham's Quarterly Apr 23, 2012 Why does it come to pass that the more data we collect -- from Google, YouTube and Facebook -- the less likely we are to know what it means? Dig deeper ( 14 Min. Read )

June Gloom With Lewis Lapham

Mr. Fish / Truthdig Sep 2, 2011 There is always smoke around Lewis Lapham, as if he’d just been conjured by some sorcerer suddenly enraged by the placation of the status quo.There is always smoke around Lewis Lapham, as if he’d just been conjured by some sorcerer. Dig deeper ( 10 Min. Read )

Barbara Ehrenreich: ‘Poverty Has Been Criminalized in America’

Staff / Truthdig Aug 14, 2011 Ten years ago, writer Barbara Ehrenreich published "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America," a blockbuster book on the state of the working poor in America. (more) Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )