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Book cover of Money and Class in America

Will Kitchen Author Of Film, Negation and Freedom: Capitalism and Romantic Critique

From Will's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Academic Philosopher Historian Critical Theorist Interdisciplinarian

Will's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Will Kitchen Why Will loves this book

Lewis H. Lapham was fascinated and puzzled by money. Particularly by the people who had lots of it. Money and Class in America, subtitled "Notes on the Civil Religion", is a polemic discussion of the power and influence of financial capital on the psychology and emotional character of the wealthy American classes. It follows in the tradition of Thorstein Veblen, combining a journalistic observation of people and experiences with a critical insight of national and class character.

By Lewis H. Lapham ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Money and Class in America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Extensively expanded and revised, with a new foreword by Thomas Frank

In the United States, happiness and wealth are often regarded as synonymous. Consumerism, greed, and the insatiable desire for more are American obsessions. In the native tradition of Twain, Veblen, and Mencken, the editor of Lapham's Quarterly here examines our fascination with the ubiquitous green goddess.

Focusing on the wealthy sybarites of New York City, whom Lewis H. Lapham has been able to observe firsthand in their natural habitat, Money and Class in America is a caustic, and often hilarious, portrait of a segment of the American population who,…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Inventions of a Present: The Novel in its Crisis of Globalization

Will Kitchen Author Of Film, Negation and Freedom: Capitalism and Romantic Critique

From Will's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Academic Philosopher Historian Critical Theorist Interdisciplinarian

Will's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Will Kitchen Why Will loves this book

Fredric Jameson (who died in September 2024), was a giant of the literary and cultural landscape. Famous for his work theorising "postmodernism," he was also an insightful critic of contemporary social history and our multimedia world. Inventions of a Present, one of his last books, offers a selection of scintillating essays on topics from across the face of modern cultural production, from Henry James to the TV show The Wire.

By Fredric Jameson ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Inventions of a Present as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A novel is an act, an intervention, which, most often, the naive reader takes as a representation. The novel intervenes to modify or correct our conventional notions of a situation and, in the best and most intense cases, to propose a wholly new idea of what constitutes an event or of the very experience of living. The most interesting contemporary novels are those which try-and sometimes manage-to awaken our sense of a collectivity behind individual experience, revealing a relationship between the isolated subjectivity and a class or community. But even if this happens (which is rare), one must go on…


Book cover of Money and Class in America
Book cover of Inventions of a Present: The Novel in its Crisis of Globalization

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