Louis Menand

Winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for HistoryA riveting, original book about the creation of modern American thought.The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. Its members included Oliver Well Holmes, Jr., future associate justice of the United States Supreme Court; William James, the father of modern American psychology; and Charles Sanders Peirce, logician, scientist, and the founder of semiotics. The Club was probably in existence for about nine months. No records were kept. The one thing we know that came out of it was an idea -- an idea about ideas. This book is the story of that idea.Holmes, James, and Peirce all believed that ideas are not things "out there" waiting to be discovered but are tools people invent -- like knives and forks and microchips -- to make their way in the world. They thought that ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals -- that ideas are social. They do not develop according to some inner logic of their own but are entirely depent -- like germs -- on their human carriers and environment. And they thought that the survival of any idea deps not on its immutability but on its adaptability.The Metaphysical Club is written in the spirit of this idea about ideas. It is not a history of philosophy but an absorbing narrative about personalities and social history, a story about America. It begins with the Civil War and s in 1919 with Justice Holmes's dissenting opinion in the case of U.S. v. Abrams-the basis for the constitutional law of free speech. The first four sections of the book focus on Holmes, James, Peirce, and their intellectual heir, John Dewey. The last section discusses some of the fundamental twentieth-century ideas they are associated with. This is a book about a way of thinking that changed American life."

In his follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand offers a new intellectual and cultural history of the postwar yearsThe Cold War was not just a contest of power. It was also about ideas, in the broadest sense--economic and political, artistic and personal. In The Free World, the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar and critic Louis Menand tells the story of American culture in the pivotal years from the end of World War II to Vietnam and shows how changing economic, technological, and social forces put their mark on creations of the mind.How did elitism and an anti-totalitarian skepticism of passion and ideology give way to a new sensibility defined by freewheeling experimentation and loving the Beatles? How was the ideal of "freedom" applied to causes that ranged from anti-communism and civil rights to radical acts of self-creation via art and even crime?With the wit and insight familiar to readers of The Metaphysical Club and his New Yorker essays, Menand takes us inside Hannah Arendt's Manhattan, the Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merce Cunningham and John Cage's residences at North Carolina's Black Mountain College, and the Memphis studio where Sam Phillips and Elvis Presley created a new music for the American teenager. He examines the post war vogue for French existentialism, structuralism and post-structuralism, the rise of abstract expressionism and pop art, Allen Ginsberg's friendship with Lionel Trilling, James Baldwin's transformation into a Civil Right spokesman, Susan Sontag's challenges to the New York Intellectuals, the defeat of obscenity laws, and the rise of the New Hollywood.Stressing the rich flow of ideas across the Atlantic, he also shows how Europeans played a vital role in promoting and influencing American art and entertainment. By the end of the Vietnam era, the American government had lost the moral prestige it enjoyed at the end of the Second World War, but America's once-despised culture had become respected and adored. With unprecedented verve and range, this book explains how that happened.

Has American higher education become a dinosaur?Why do professors all tend to think alike? What makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects should be required? Why do teachers and scholars find it so difficult to transcend the limits of their disciplines? Why, in short, are problems that should be easy for universities to solve so intractable? The answer, Louis Menand argues, is that the institutional structure and the educational philosophy of higher education have remained the same for one hundred years, while faculties and student bodies have radically changed and technology has drastically transformed the way people produce and disseminate knowledge. At a time when competition to get into and succeed in college has never been more intense, universities are providing a less-useful education. Sparking a long-overdue debate about the future of American education, The Marketplace of Ideas examines what professors and students—and all the rest of us—might be better off without, while assessing what it is worth saving in our traditional university institutions.

At each step of this journey through American cultural history, Louis Menand has an original point to he explains the real significance of William James's nervous breakdown, and of the anti-Semitism in T. S. Eliot's writing. He reveals the reasons for the remarkable commercial successes of William Shawn's New Yorker and William Paley's CBS. He uncovers the connection between Larry Flynt's Hustler and Jerry Falwell's evangelism, between the atom bomb and the Scholastic Aptitude Test. He locates the importance of Richard Wright, Norman Mailer, Pauline Kael, Christopher Lasch, and Rolling Stone magazine. And he lends an ear to Al Gore in the White House as the Starr Report is finally presented to the public. Like his critically acclaimed bestseller, The Metaphysical Club, American Studies is intellectual and cultural history at its game and detached, with a strong curiosity about the political underpinnings of ideas and about the reasons successful ideas insinuate themselves into the culture at large. From one of our leading thinkers and critics, known both for his "sly wit and reportorial high-jinks [and] clarity and rigor" ( The Nation ), these essays are incisive, surprising, and impossible to put down.

When Discovering Modernism was first published, it shed new and welcome light on the birth of Modernism. This reissue of Menand's classic intellectual history of T.S. Eliot and the singular role he played in the rise of literary modernism features an updated Afterword by the author, as well as a detailed critical appraisal of the progression of Eliot's career as a poet and critic. The new Afterword was adapted from Menand's critically lauded essay on Eliot in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume Seven: Modernism and the New Criticism. Menand shows how Eliot's early views on literary value and authenticity, and his later repudiation of those views, reflect the profound changes regarding the understanding of literature and its significance that occurred in the early part of the twentieth century. It will prove an eye-opening study for readers with an interest in the writings of T.S. Eliot and other luminaries of the Modernist era.

Um livro monumental e enciclopédico que se afigura imprescindível para compreender o pensamento, a arte e a cultura dominantes do século XX.Livro finalista do National Book Award Autor vencedor do Prémio PulitzerMelhor livro de não-ficção do ano 2023: PúblicoUm dos melhores livros do ano 2023: Expresso e Diário de NotíciasEscrito como um romance com centenas de personagens, O Mundo Livre descreve e analisa as causas da afirmação dos Estados Unidos no panorama cultural do Ocidente, do final da Segunda Grande Guerra até ao desfecho da Guerra do Vietname, período que ficou conhecido como Guerra Fria.Da literatura, da música, das artes plásticas e performativas, das ciências ao cinema, de James Baldwin, John Cage, Andy Warhol, Elvis Presley, Susan Sontag e Hannah Arendt a Hollywood, nenhuma personagem ou tema, facto ou curiosidade escapam à narrativa lúcida e envolvente de Menand, neste livro saudado pela crítica internacional como «uma lufada de ar fresco» e uma obra «brilhante, absolutamente original e bem escrita» que oferece ao leitor o mosaico completo do pensamento e da arte do Ocidente no século XX.Os elogios da crí«Com mais de mil páginas, O Mundo Livre lê-se como um romance, numa teia de relações pessoais, artísticas e de pensamento que continua a marcar a actualidade.»Isabel Lucas, Público [5 estrelas]«O Mundo Livre entra naquela categoria de livros que tanto se podem ler indo do princípio ao fim, saboreando os seus 18 capítulos temáticos em sucessão, como visitando as partes que mais apelam no momento ao leitor. Idealmente, faz-se uma leitura inicial completa e a seguir passa-se a usá-lo como obra de referência.»Luís M. Faria, Expresso[5 estrelas]«Um livro épico.» The New York Times «O alcance e a abrangência deste livro são deslumbrantes. [Menand] empreendeu o que poucos escritores de história intelectual se atreveriam a fazer.» The Times Literary Supplement «Brilhante, absolutamente original e muito bem escrito.» The New York Times Book Review «O Mundo Livre apresenta um longo passeio panorâmico a uma era de mudança de paradigma.» The Washington Post «Notável. Um livro cativante e muitas vezes revelador, uma síntese ampla, ambiciosa e maravilhosamente elaborada da história intelectual e cultural.» Slate «Uma pintura sumptuosa do pós-guerra e da política global, de uma erudição primorosa aliada a uma prosa que não se consegue parar de ler. Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Jackson Pollock, Susan todos estes titãs intelectuais e indivíduos imperfeitos ganham nova vida neste livro.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2018 with the help of original edition published long back [1896]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - eng, Pages 158. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.} Complete Miscellaneous documents on divers subjects : as a sequel to my biography, etc., from 1807 to 1896 / by ... L. Menand. 1896 Menand, Louis, -.