The Free World: Louis Menand with A.O. Scott

Louis Menand presents his definitive new intellectual and cultural history of the United States in the post-WWII era.

Twenty years ago in The Metaphysical Club, Pulitzer Prize–winning scholar and critic Louis Menand explored American intellectual and cultural history in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. In The Free World, he returns to those questions about what defined and shaped American culture—economically, politically, artistically, and personally—later on, during the Cold War. Taking readers inside such moments and places as Hannah Arendt’s Manhattan, the Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Merce Cunningham and John Cage’s residencies at Black Mountain College, and Elvis Presley’s early career at  Sun Studios in Memphis, Menand shows how changing economic, technological, and social forces impacted the world of ideas as much as they did the contest for power.

Louis Menand researched and wrote The Free World during his 2007–2008 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He discusses his book with New York Times critic A.O. Scott.

Produced in partnership with The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

This program will be streamed live on the NYPL event page.

ACCESSIBILITY NOTES
A live transcript will be provided. ASL interpretation is available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org. A pre-filled Gmail template is available by clicking here. Any media will be accompanied by alt text to reference before the program or by audio description.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Louis Menand is professor of English at Harvard University and a staff writer at the New Yorker. His books include The Metaphysical Club, which won the Pulitzer Prize in history and the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American Historians. In 2016, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

A. O. Scott joined the New York Times as a film critic in January 2000. Previously, he was a Sunday book reviewer for Newsday and a frequent contributor to Slate, the New York Review of Books, and many other publications. He has served on the editorial staffs of Lingua Franca and the New York Review of Books. In addition to his film-reviewing duties, he often writes for the New York Times Magazine and the New York Times Book Review, and is the author of Better Living Through Criticism. He lives with his family in Brooklyn.

GET THE BOOK

• NYPL Catalog


• SimplyE, available on iOS and Android


• The Library Shop — proceeds benefit the New York Public Library

Don't have a New York Public Library card? Get one here!

CONNECT   

Sign up for our e-newsletters to stay up to date on upcoming events and Library offerings.

Please submit all press inquiries to Sara Beth Joren at least 48 hours before the event: email sarabethjoren@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

For all other questions and inquiries, please email publicprograms@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.

LIVE from NYPL is made possible by the support of Library patrons and friends, as well as by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.

PUBLIC NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER
This Program uses a third-party website link. By clicking on the third-party website link, you will leave NYPL’s website and enter a website not operated by NYPL. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of every third-party website or service that you visit or use, including those third parties with whom you interact with through our Library services. For more information about these third-party links, please see the section of NYPL's Privacy Policy describing "Third-Party Library Services Providers" at https://www.nypl.org/help/about-nypl/legal-notices/privacy-policy.

During this Program, you will be using third-party platforms such as Zoom and YouTube, for the purpose of communication. This service may collect some personally identifying information about you, such as name, username, email address, & password. This service will treat the information it collects about you pursuant to its own privacy policy, which can be found here: Google Privacy Policy, Zoom Privacy Policy, YouTube Privacy Policy.

Louis Menand photo © Matthew Valentine