Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration - Softcover

Lapham, Lewis H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1595582290 ISBN 13: 9781595582294

Publisher: The New Press, 2007

Synopsis

Pretensions to Empire brings together Lewis Lapham’s recent political commentaries from his National Magazine Award–winning Harper’s “Notebook” column, beginning with the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and culminating in Lapham’s eloquent (and widely cited) case for the impeachment of George W. Bush.

Written in the highly literate and “self-assured style” (Publishers Weekly) that has earned Lapham a large and devoted readership, the pieces in this collection provide not only a critical perspective on Bush’s presidency—helping us understand what happened and how it happened—but also vital new information and research, including a brilliant dissection of the Republican propaganda mill’s octopus-like network and its role in the neoconservative ascent to power. As Lapham writes in the book’s preface, “these essays describe a march of folly, establish a record of moral incompetence and criminal intent, speak to the character of a government stupefied by its worship of money and blinded by its belief in miracles.”

Elegant and erudite, Pretensions to Empire is a “rousing” indictment of a stumbling political regime from the “loquacious lion of the literary left” (Mother Jones).

About this title

About the Author

Lewis Lapham is the editor of Lapham’s Quarterly. Formerly the editor of Harper’s Magazine, he is the author of several books, including Money and Class in America, Theater of War (The New Press), Gag Rule, and Pretensions to Empire (The New Press). He lives in New York City.

From Publishers Weekly

The well-respected and much-fêted editor emeritus of Harper's magazine and recipient of a National Magazine Award, Lapham presents a collection of previously published articles that range from the funding of think tanks and propaganda outfits to the rigging of the 2004 election and the response to Hurricane Katrina. Overall, this book is a lament for the state of our society and a bitter condemnation of the Republican hold on power and the machinations with which that grip has been cultivated and sustained. Lapham's dense and self-assured style is rivaled only by that of William F. Buckley Jr. in delivering a whopping dose of sanctimony and affectation with each paragraph. Though more erudite than Ann Coulter or Bill O'Reilly, Lapham's essays are similarly bereft of a sustained line of argument. He also shares their irredeemably dark view of human nature, or at least of Americans, who we learn are "[w]arfaring people, unique in our gift for violence... killing anyone and anything." Above all, he seems to enjoy nothing more than to display his boundless contempt for all those who are not him. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: The New Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1595582290
• ISBN 13: 9781595582294
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288