Imperial Masquerade - Hardcover

Here is a book that a reader may dip into without having to take a plunge. It consists of 70 essays that Lapham, author of Money and Class in America ( LJ 1/88), editor of Harper's Magazine, and host of the TV series Bookmark , wrote between 1980 and 1989. Most of the selections appeared in Harper's and the remainder in such newspapers as The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun . It is a ships-and-shoes-and-sealing wax affair in which the editor-philosopher displays an agile, wide-ranging mind and an easy, free-flowing style. He writes about everything--arts and letters, politics and economics, states and government. A great deal of the talk is witty and lighthearted, several of the anecdotes are delightful, and there is much satire, both kindly and biting. But there is also an element of intellectual idealism that gives depth of a kind to the general riot. A solid purchase. For more on Lapham, see "Contributing Factors," p. 93.
- Ed. -- A.J. Anderson, Graduate Sch. of Library & Information Science, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lapham ( Money and Class in America ) sees signs of decadence everywhere, from domestication of the arts through government subsidies to our awe of anything that smacks of "high tech." In this miscellany of 50 Harper's columns and 20 other pieces, the editor of Harper's lashes out at the subservient U.S. press, crippled watchdog of the powers that be, and questions America's assumptions of unlimited virtue and power. He skewers Jimmy Carter, Oliver North, "competent despot" Anwar Sadat, Geraldine Ferraro and, above all, "illusionist" Ronald Reagan. He critiques the insanity of nuclear arms buildup, the CIA's "comedy of errors" abroad, U.S. foreign loans that trap poorer nations in a spiral of debt. Lapham's patrician tone is at odds with his anti-establishment opinions, and one often wishes for a more sustained, thoroughgoing analysis of the issues he raises.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.