Written by: Lewis Lapham

Publisher: New Press

Thank God, country and Hotchkiss for Lewis Lapham. The series of erudite and witty columns that makes up Pretensions to Empire first took form in an essay titled “Tentacles of Rage” in the pages of Harper’s, where Lapham now serves as editor emeritus. Coming from almost any other writer, one might question the rather tendentious title at hand, but this would-be debunker of Bush administration shenanigans carefully illustrates how the current moral and political quagmire that the United State finds itself in is actually the result of a well-funded and carefully-planned right-wing jihad against our basic civil liberties. Whether it’s questioning the war in Iraq, torture in Guantanamo or the rollback of affirmative action, Lapham deftly shows that class conflict is alive and well in America. He also places the current moral gangrene that Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft represent in the proper historical context—substitute McKinley for Bush, the war in the Phillipines for Iraq, or switch Enron for any of a dozen railway or utility companies at the turn-of-the-century, and Lapham argues you would have twin historical evils staring at each other in a capitalist reflecting pool. A lot of what he says won’t surprise anyone who has been critical of recent events in the Middle East or at home, but it’s especially nice to see that someone who’s part of the landed gentry is still willing to look at our country honestly and tackle its worst demons head-on.