title: Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy
author:  Lewis H. Lapham 
description: Without doubt our greatest satiristelegant, honorable, learned and fair. I love reading him.<br /><b> Kurt Vonnegut</b><br /><br /> Lewis Laphamborn of Mark Twain and H. L. Menckenis the most provocative and engaging essayist in the country.<br /><b> George Plimpton</b><br /><br /> One of the last liberal thinkers, a man of elegant humor. Should he wander onto the premises of Fox TV, hed surely be shot down like a dog.<br /><b> Liz Smith</b><br /><br /> Laphams indignation is ecumenical, his scorn spread as smoothly as butter from left to right and north to south across the face of contemporary America.<br /><b> <i>Boston Globe</i></b><br /><br /> Lapham is a wonderful writer, a connoisseur of the perfect word.<br /><b> <i>Business Week</i></b><br /><br /> The combination of Laphams urbane prose and lethal wit  makes for delightful reading.<br /><b> <i>Forbes</i></b><br /><br /> To read Laphams work, so erudite and conscientious, is to realize that saving our democracy will take bold-face truth-telling, bravery and a populace willing to change: An alchemical improbability. However, if you can read this book and not want to commit to the work necessary to save our democracy, you are already lost. <br /><b><i>Literary Hub</i></b><br /><br /> Although frequently dark, <i>The Age of Folly</i> comes with much humor and elegant writing  Laphams sharp prose pricks the self-importance of the powerful, who too often parade with claim to omniscience and omnipotency  Highly recommended.<br /><b> <i>Choice</i></b><br /><br />[Illustrates] how and why our democracy has given way to a dysfunctional plutocracy of the super-rich, by the super-rich, and for the super-rich. Taken together, the books essays, published between 1990 and 2016 in <i>Laphams Quarterly</i> and <i>Harpers</i>, serve as a powerful and alarming American history  With <i>Age of Folly</i>, Lapham provides the historical context needed to understand our current political moment.<br /><b>Adam Boretz,<i>The Millions</i></b>
zlib_text: Age of Folly
  
  Also by Lewis H. Lapham
  
   _The Agony of Mammon_
  
   _Fortune’s Child_
  
   _Gag Rule_
  
   _Hotel America_
  
   _Imperial Masquerade_
  
   _Lights, Camera, Democracy!_
  
   _Money and Class in America_
  
   _Pretensions to Empire_
  
   _Theater of War_
  
   _30 Satires_
  
   _Waiting for the Barbarians_
  
   _The Wish for Kings_
  
   _With the Beatles_
  
  Age of Folly
  
   _America Abandons_  
   _Its Democracy_
  
  Lewis H. Lapham
  
  ![](Images/image00256.jpeg)
  
  First published by Verso 2016
  
  © Lewis Lapham 2016
  
  The essays comprising Part I appeared first in the pages of _Harper’s_  
   _Magazine_ between 1990 and 2015; chapters 33 through 35 were  
  published originally in _Lapham’s Quarterly_ between 2014 and 2016
  
  All rights reserved
  
  The moral rights of the author have been asserted
  
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   **Verso**
  
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  Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
  
  ISBN-13: 978-1-78478-711-0  
  ISB