Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion [Hardcover]

Lewis H. Lapham (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Despite strong opening hints that this is going to be a genuinely significant examination of the role that money plays in the class structure of America, it soon becomes apparent that Lapham has written not so much a study with a well-developed thesis as a series of separate chapters loosely tied to the theme that Americans are obsessed by the desire to make money and that they never feel they have enough. The book is a curious melange of personal experiences, quotations, anecdotes, footnotes, and some rather dubious assertions. As a result the narrative is meandering and disconnected. General readers may find themselves tantalized at times.A. J. Anderson, G.S.L.I.S., Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 244 pages
• Publisher: Grove Pr; 1st edition (February 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555841090
• ISBN-13: 978-1555841096
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #974,335 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All You Need Is Cash, December 10, 2000

By 

Leona Malo (The Golden State) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion (Hardcover)

Written in the 1980s when Reaganmania ruled, this book is just as apt for today. Lapham comes from the moneyed class, but he does not take their side. Instead, he offers insights into The Inheritors and The Parvenu from a perspective the rest of us will never attain. The chapter titles alone are worth the read:"The Golden Horde", "Social Hygiene", "Coined Souls". His wit is wonderfully displayed whether he's taking on the bored and clueless trust fund babies or the so-called poor who spend as if they actually have money. America's infatuation with wealth and material accumulation is indeed our civic religion.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential, timeless, more important than ever, September 15, 2011

By 

Kashin (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion (Hardcover)

This book should be read by every single "limousine liberal" and conservative crank who REALLY wants to know why no one can "fix" America. Written in 1988 when "Greed was Good," the book has aged tremendously well, because everything Lapham said back then is still true today, only a thousandfold more so. If he thought the national cost of mergers and acquisitions was high, we now know it was just the warmup act for the hedge-fund mentality of today.

Unlike other books written in the last 20 years that bill themselves as a sort of field guide to the rich, this is the only one I've seen that puts the way money works in context with the culture, the nation, and the larger world.

The year I graduated college Gordon Lightfoot sang, that "Away you will go sailing in a race among the ruins." Man--how right he was!

Highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars Lapham at his best, January 21, 2012

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vkxmai (Akron, OH) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on Our Civil Religion (Hardcover)

Essential reading for the populist-inclined millennial generation currently occupying a town near you. Lapham's meditations on the equestrian classes are spot-on and relevant even at this late date 25 years on.