Lewis H. Lapham

This article is about the writer. For the entrepreneur, see Lewis Henry Lapham.

Lewis H. Lapham
Lewis Lapham at an American Library Association conference in 2010
Born	Lewis Henry Lapham (1935-01-08)January 8, 1935 San Francisco, California, U.S.
Died	July 23, 2024(2024-07-23) (aged 89) Rome, Italy
Alma mater	Yale University Magdalene College, Cambridge
Occupation	Writer
Known for	Editor of Harper's Magazine
Spouse	Joan Brooke Reeves ​ (m. 1972)​
Children	3
Parent	Lewis A. Lapham (father)
Relatives	Caroline Mulroney (daughter-in-law) Christopher Lloyd (first cousin once removed)

Lewis Henry Lapham (/ˈlæpəm/; January 8, 1935 – July 23, 2024) was an American writer. He was the editor of the American monthly Harper's Magazine from 1976 until 1981, and from 1983 until 2006. He was the founder of Lapham's Quarterly, a quarterly publication about history and literature, and wrote numerous books on politics and current affairs.

Early life and education

A son of Lewis A. Lapham and Jane Foster, Lapham was born and grew up in San Francisco. His grandfather Roger Lapham was a mayor of San Francisco, and his great-grandfather, Lewis Henry Lapham, was a founder of Texaco. Through his grandfather, Lapham was the son of the first cousin of actor Christopher Lloyd, although Lapham was three years older. As a child, he attended the Hotchkiss School.

Lapham was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge and Yale University, where he was a member of St. Anthony Hall.

Personal life

In 1972, Lapham married Joan Brooke Reeves, the daughter of Edward J. Reeves, a stockbroker and grocery heir, and Elizabeth M. Brooke (formerly the wife of Thomas Wilton Phipps, a nephew of Nancy Astor). They had three children:

• Delphina (married Prince Don Bante Maria Boncompagni-Ludovisi)
• Andrew (married Caroline Mulroney, only daughter of former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney)
• Winston

Lapham, previously living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, moved to Rome at the start of 2024. He died there on July 23, 2024, at the age of 89.

Harper's Magazine

Lapham served as editor of Harper's Magazine from 1976 to 2006 (with a hiatus from 1981 to 1983). He was managing editor from 1971 to 1975, after having worked for the San Francisco Examiner and the New York Herald Tribune. He was largely responsible for the modern look and prominence of the magazine, having introduced many of its signature features, including the "Harper's Index". He announced that he would become editor emeritus in spring 2006, continuing to write his Notebook column for the magazine as well as editing a new journal about history, Lapham's Quarterly. Lapham also worked with the PEN American Center, sitting on the board of judges for the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award. In 2007, he was inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame.

Republican National Convention

Lapham wrote a September 2004 column for Harper's in which he included a brief account of the Republican National Convention as if he had witnessed it, "reflecting on the content and sharing with readers a question that occurred to him as he listened", as Jennifer Senior wrote in the New York Times Book Review. The magazine arrived in subscribers' mailboxes before the convention took place, as Senior says "forcing Lapham to admit that the scene was a fiction". The columnist apologized, "but pointed out political conventions are drearily scripted anyway – he basically knew what was going to be said". Senior continues, "By this logic, though, I could have chosen not to read Pretensions to Empire before reviewing it, since I already knew Lapham's sensibility, just as he claims to know the Republicans."

Works

External videos
Booknotes interview with Lapham on The Wish for Kings, August 15, 1993, C-SPAN
Presentation by Lapham on The Wish for Kings, July 27, 1993, C-SPAN
Presentation by Lapham on New American Ruling Class, January 25, 1996, C-SPAN
Presentation by Lapham on An American Album: 150 Years of Harper's Magazine, May 25, 2000, C-SPAN
Presentation by Lapham on Theater of War, October 3, 2002, C-SPAN
Presentation by Lapham on Age of Folly, November 3, 2016, C-SPAN

His writing appeared in The American Conservative Life, Commentary, Vanity Fair, National Review, Yale Literary Magazine, ELLE, Fortune, Forbes, American Spectator, The New York Times, The Walrus, Maclean's, The Observer (London), and the Wall Street Journal. Lapham also served as a judge for the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.

Lapham was the host and author of the PBS series America's Century and he was host of the weekly PBS series, Bookmark from 1989 to 1991.

Lapham was until his death the host of The World in Time: radio discussions with scholars and historians on Bloomberg Radio that open the doors of history behind the events in the news. Podcasts of the weekly talks are available at Bloomberg.com.

Lapham wrote The American Ruling Class (2005), a movie done in documentary style and featuring fictional characters and real people, i.e. Bill Bradley, Hodding Carter III. and Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, pondering the question "Is there a ruling class in America?", Lapham states at the movie's conclusion that "if you're not in, you're out". The movie aired on the Sundance Channel on July 30, 2007.

Books

• — (1980). Fortune's Child. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-14887-9.
• — (1988). Money and Class in America. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 1-55584-109-0.
• — (1990). Imperial Masquerade. Grove Weidenfeld. ISBN 1-55584-449-9.
• — (1993). The Wish for Kings: Democracy at Bay. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-1446-6.
• — (1995). Hotel America. Verso. ISBN 1-85984-952-0.
• — (1997). Waiting for the Barbarians. Verso. ISBN 1-85984-882-6.
• — (1999). Lapham's Rules of Influence. Random House. ISBN 0-679-42605-1.
• — (1999). The Agony of Mammon. Verso. ISBN 1-85984-710-2.
• — (2001). Lights, Camera, Democracy!. Random House Publishing. ISBN 0-679-64713-9.
• — (2003). Theater of War. New Press. ISBN 1-56584-772-5.
• — (2003). 30 Satires. New Press. ISBN 1-56584-846-2.
• — (2004). Gag Rule. Penguin. ISBN 1-59420-017-3.
• — (2005). With the Beatles. Melville House Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9766583-2-0.
• — (2006). Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration. The New Press. p. 288. ISBN 1-59558-112-X.
• — (2016). Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy. Verso. p. 400. ISBN 978-1-7847-8711-0.

Articles

• — (January 2009). "Notebook: By the rivers of Babylon". Harper's Magazine. Vol. 318, no. 1904. pp. 7–9.

Awards

• 1978 Gerald Loeb Award for Magazines

External links

• Lapham's Quarterly
  • Essays by Lewis H. Lapham
• "Lewis Lapham to Become Editor Emeritus of Harper's Magazine". Harpers.
• "Lewis Lapham discussing history with guests" (Podcast). The World in Time. Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on April 11, 2008.
• Lewis Lapham at IMDb
• Appearances on C-SPAN
  • "Interview with Lapham". In Depth. June 3, 2007.
• Preliminary Inventory to the Lewis Henry Lapham Papers, 1971–1981. Hoover Institution. 82023.