Age of Folly

Reviews / Votes

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 * [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 * 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. -- R.J. Terchek, University of Maryland College Park * CHOICE *