Written by John Lounsbury
Author and journalist Lewis Lapham reviews the history and meaning of the term “The American Dream” and how its meaning has changed from its first occurence to the present day. His focus includes assessment of how the “ruling class” of the United States has evolved. Himself a product of “the privileged upper class”, Lapham does not have a positive view of how the U.S. has evolved into a “stupified plutocracy”.
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About Lewis Lapham, from Wikipedia:
Lewis Henry Lapham (/ˈlæpəm/; born January 8, 1935) is an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper’s Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006.[1] He is the founder of Lapham’s Quarterly, a quarterly publication about history and literature, and has written numerous books on politics and current affairs.
A son of Lewis A. Lapham and Jane Foster, Lapham was born and grew up in San Francisco. His grandfather Roger Lapham was mayor of San Francisco, and his great grandfather, Lewis Henry Lapham, was a founder of Texaco. Through his grandfather, Lapham is a first cousin once removed of actor Christopher Lloyd, although they are three years apart in age. As a child, he attended the Hotchkiss School.
Lapham was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and Yale University, where he joined the literary society St. Anthony Hall.
In 1972, Lapham married Joan Brooke Reeves, the daughter of Edward J. Reeves, a stockbroker and grocery heir, and Elizabeth M. Brooke (formerly the wife of Thomas Wilton Phipps, a nephew of Nancy Astor). They have three children:
- Delphina (married Prince Don Bante Maria Boncompagni-Ludovisi)[2]
- Andrew (married Caroline Mulroney, only daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney)
- Winston
From YouTube:
When author and journalist Lewis Lapham, founder of Lapham’s Quarterly and former editor of Harper’s, turned his shrewd gaze on the go-go ‘80s in “Money and Class in America,” he never imagined the era’s avatar of greed would one day become President Donald Trump. Three decades later, Lapham shares his views on the decades-long deterioration of democracy in an interview with INET’s Lynn Parramore. An expanded and revised edition of his book is now available with a new foreward by Thomas Frank from OR Books.
This 18 minute program is presented by the Institute for New Economic Thinking and moderated by Lynn Parramore. The background for this discussion is Lapham’s 2018 book “Money and Class in America“.
Source: YouTube
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