{"product_id":"hotel-america-lewis-lapham-9781859849521","title":"Hotel America: Scenes in the Lobby of the Fin de Siecle","description":"Winner of the 1995 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism, this work observes the spectacle of democratic life and values in our time, and asks who is signing in and who is checking out, of the American experiment at the \"fin de si cle.\" Culled from Lewis Lapham's monthly \"Notebook\" column for \u003ci\u003eHarper's\u003c\/i\u003e magazine, these essays describe the period between the winter of 1989 and the spring of 1995 in which the American explaining classes were casting around for a national folktale to take the place of the communist conspiracy. In this book, Lewis Lapham draws a portrait of a society at a loss to know what to think or make of itself at the end of a century once defined as America's own. His observations speak to the moral and intellectual confusions visited upon the American ruling elites--in the media and the universities, as well as in business and government--during the years 1989-1995. The spectacle is both comic and sad, a march of folly that calls forth Lapham's range as an essayist. Lapham's sketches take as their occasions events as different from one another as the wars in Panama and the Persian Gulf, the apotheosis of Richard Nixon and the transfiguration of O.J. Simpson, the grim inspections of the American soul conducted by the agents of both the pious left (no smoking cigarettes, no dirty water in the swimming pools, condoms in the schools) and the zealous right (no serial murders in the movies, no lesbians in the army, prayer in the schools), the media's use of history as wallpaper and elevator music, the dwindling significance of President Clinton (vanishing as mysteriously as the Cheshire cat) and the bombastic arrival of Newt Gingrich (\"a man for all grievances\"), the practice of swindling the stockholders and the art of changing gossip into news.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Lewis Lapham\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1859849520\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781859849521\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Verso\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/17\/1995\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 378\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.76lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.51h x 6.47w x 1.41d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/15\/1995 pg. 1329\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 10\/15\/1995 pg. 79\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/12\/1995 pg. 56","brand":"Lewis Lapham","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":46199136485631,"sku":"9781859849521","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_c440b411-cb6d-4dd5-8de7-4044c132d1dd.jpg?v=1727925149","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/hotel-america-lewis-lapham-9781859849521","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}