Menander (c. 341-291 BC) was the foremost innovator of Greek New Comedy, a dramatic style that moved away from the fantastical to focus upon the problems of ordinary Athenians. This collection contains the full text of 'Old Cantankerous' (Dyskolos), the only surviving complete example of New Comedy, as well as fragments from works including 'The Girl from Samos' and 'The Rape of the Locks', all of which are concerned with domestic catastrophes, the hazards of love and the trials of family ...

Essays that represents "the heart" of the Pulitzer Prize–winning author's work and "demonstrate his status as his generation's premier critical talent" ( Los Angeles Times).At each step of this journey through American cultural history, Louis Menand has an original point to make: he explains the real significance of William James's nervous breakdown, and of the anti-Semitism in T. S. Eliot's writing. He reveals the reasons for the remarkable commercial succ...

Hardly a club in the conventional sense, the organization referred to in the title of this superb literary hybrid—part history, part biography, part philosophy— consisted of four members and probably existed for less than nine months. Yet its impact upon American intellectual life remains incalculable. Louis Menand masterfully weaves pivotal late 19th-and early 20th-century events, colorful biographical anecdotes, and abstract ideas into a narrative whole that both enthralls and enlightens...

"Crisp and illuminating . . . well worth reading."—Wall Street JournalThe publication of The Marketplace of Ideas has precipitated a lively debate about the future of the American university system: what makes it so hard for colleges to decide which subjects are required? Why are so many academics against the concept of interdisciplinary studies? From his position at the heart of academe, Harvard professor Louis Menand thinks he's found the answer...

Power. Wealth. Arrogance. It all comes crashing down in one weekend.Marcus Rutherford is the undisputed king of Riverside, Wyoming. At forty-five, he's a titan of industry with a jawline that could cut diamonds and a bank account that commands absolute respect. He rules Rutherford Industries with an iron fist and takes pride in his reputation as precise, unyielding, and utterly narcissistic. He has the perfect home, the perfect career, and a devoted husband, Richar...

Brilliant, surprising insights into America yesterday and today from the New York Times bestselling author of The Metaphysical Club.

The New Yorker staff writer Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club is the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History.A national bestseller and "hugely ambitious, unmistakably brilliant" (Janet Maslin, New York Times) book about the creation of modern American thought.The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. Its members included Oliver Wendell Holme...

"An engrossing and impossibly wide-ranging project . . . In The Free World, every seat is a good one." —Carlos Lozada, The Washington Post**"The Free World sparkles. Fully original, beautifully written . . . One hopes Menand has a sequel in mind. The bar is set very high." —David Oshinsky, The New York Times Book Review | Editors' ChoiceOne of The New York Times's 100 best books of 2021 | One of The Washingto...

Do the Fed’s efforts to stabilize the economy worsen inequality?The Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank, was built for a monetary system composed primarily of investor-owned, government-chartered banks. But over the years, the erosion of banking law and the rise of alternative forms of money created outside of the banking system have pushed the Fed to take on more and more responsibilities to keep the economy out of recession, as it did during the 2008 crisis, a...

He is the CEO of an empire, but in his own kitchen, he is just the main course.Marcus Rutherford is a man who cultivated a reputation for being a cold, ruthless tyrant. As the CEO of Rutherford Industries, he is used to being the one in control, the one who ends careers with a single word. But the walls he built around himself are crumbling. He is discovering a hunger he cannot name, and a desperate need to be used is starting to consume him.A Recip...

"Narrator David Colacci approaches this opinionated, engrossing audiobook with a practiced voice that lets its numerous stories tell themselves without fanfare...this audiobook is a monumental work." -- AudioFile MagazineIn his follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize**–winning The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand offers a new intellectual and cultural history of the postwar years.**The Cold War was not just a contest of power. It w...

King Aaron of Westron thought it was a good idea to cheat on his husband for the millionth time, but this time he's taking the "work trip" excuse to a whole new level of commitment. Bored by ten years of marriage to his "maddeningly perfect" Prince Consort, Gregor, and tired of having his lovers exiled, married off to horse-faced nobles, or else forced into priesthood, Aaron decides that forging a letter about a non-existing military crisis is the only logical way to secur...