Customer Reviews

Waiting for the Barbarians

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Most political books are either so slanted and partisan they induce literary vomiting, or so bland and general they say nothing at all. This book is well written, well researched and just funny. Sarcasm in its highest form paralells the very literature it mocks, and this book succeeds in that. To anyone who enjoys the sport of Americna politics, or just wonders where this democracy-on-prozac is headed, I highly recomend it.

Lewis Lapham has served for some time in the role of 'a voice crying in the wilderness'. I am often amazed of the breadth of his historical perspective and his currently 'unamerican' willingness, or rather eagerness, to reach below the surface of events and bring to light essences which an informed and engaged electorate need to be conscious of, but will rarely have the opportunity to consider if they rely solely upon the mainstream U S media for information. A Lewis Lapham essay is like a trip to another part of the globe without the jet lag. This collection continues his excellent tradition and the truths contained within, while topical, are timeless in value. If you care about the world and our place in it, and you wish to be challenged to reconsider your assumptions about reality, reading Mr. Lapham is a must.

I picked up "Waiting for the Barbarians" because it was referenced in another book I recently read (Morris Berman's The Twilight of American Culture). However, while I found Berman's book very thoughtful and interesting, Lapham's tome was anything but. It is a collection of essays, most of which are tedious political rants. Occasionally, Lapham does show razor-keen wit lampooning the vanities of politicians, academics, and celebrities, and the general stupidity of modern culture. I particularly enjoyed the essay comparing late '90's America with the Elizabethan era court. I just wish that Lapham had made the rest of "Waiting for the Barbarians" as brilliant a critique as that particular section. Instead, the bulk of the book is spent rehashing the 1996 Presidential primaries and general election (yawn).

I found the Lapham's essay devoted to bashing Robert Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline a serious case of the pot calling the kettle black. The criticisms by Lapham of Bork's book fit perfectly "Waiting for the Barbarians" IMHO with the minor substitution of the single word "left-wing" for "right-wing" in the last sentence: "a shrill, vain, and arrogant man...[who] doesn't write nearly as well as the Unabomber, and his jeremiad, which is both less intelligent and less original, relies on secondhand sources and borrowed thoughts rather than on his own original observations....His book reads like a collection of notes taken at a series of academic conferences...substituting dogma and abstraction for coherent narrative and historical fact....So serene is his faith in right-wing politics." Yep, that just about sums up my feelings on most of the essays in "Waiting for the Barbarians".

I was very disappointed in "Waiting for the Barbarians" because to me it represents a squandered opportunity for offering up a critique of a society that, as Lapham puts it, "has gone large in the stomach and soft in the head". He offers frustratingly brief glimpses of keen wit and insight but to get to those, I had to wade through page upon page of tedious and dated political ranting. If I wanted to hear that kind of hot air, I'd turn on Rachel Maddow- at least she would be ranting about current events rather than things that happened 15+ years ago...

You don't see Lapham making the list of "25 Billionaires and Millionaires That Became Philanthropists" Google it

You can't, can you, dismiss the irony that Lapham is a very wealthy man, an oil heir....born into wealth, educated at the finest and I'm sure thru family connections was bestowed his lofty position.
A son of Lewis A. Lapham. His grandfather Roger Lapham was mayor of San Francisco, and his great grandfather Lewis P. Lapham was a founder of TEXACO. Grandfather was an overseer of Harvard . Great, great, great grandfather was the Secretary of War in the Jefferson Administration.

In 1972, Lapham married Joan Brooke Reeves, the daughter of Edward J. Reeves, a stockbroker and grocery heir, and his wife, the former 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) Andrew (married Caroline Mulroney, a daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney) Winston

So he can say anything, do anything he wants without fear. Plus I would say that if there was anyone who is out of touch with the "common man" it is Lapham and his fellow top 1%.

I like what he says, regardless if he's being genuine. who knows whether he speaks his heart. Again he is not a philanthropist.

Perfectly satisfied with the transaction. The book condition was as it was described. Will recommend the seller without any hesitation.