Louis Menand
The New Yorker
United States
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Past articles by Louis:
The Very Public Private Life of Andy Warhol
Warhol’s diaries, the subject of a new Netflix series, detail almost everything the artist did. But do they tell us anything about his art? → Read More
The People Who Decide What Becomes History
However fastidious they may be about facts, historians are engaged in storytelling, not science. → Read More
What’s So Great About Great-Books Courses?
The humanities are in danger, but humanists can’t agree on how—or why—they should be saved. → Read More
Are Liberals to Blame for Our Crisis of Faith in Government?
Progressives as well as conservatives have promoted suspicion of the establishment, but lack of trust is not the same as apathy. → Read More
Before Roy Lichtenstein Went Pop
The early works of the artist show that his playful irony was present from the start. → Read More
Are All Short Stories O. Henry Stories?
The writer’s signature style of ending—a final, thrilling note—has the touch of magic that distinguishes the form at its best. → Read More
What Our Biggest Best-Sellers Tell Us About a Nation’s Soul
Reading America through more than two centuries of its favorite books. → Read More
The Making of “Midnight Cowboy,” and the Remaking of Hollywood
The 1969 film has become famous for being ahead of its time, but it may be most revealing as an artifact of its time—a turning point in the history of movies. → Read More
A Blue-State Thanksgiving Menu
The country has been damaged—we don’t even know how badly—but it still has a soul. We should feel gratitude this week for some of those through whom it shone. → Read More
What Good Government Looks Like
Louis Menand writes about the director Frederick Wiseman’s new documentary film, “City Hall,” which, based in Boston, exhibits the myriad functions of city government. → Read More
Wikipedia, “Jeopardy!,” and the Fate of the Fact
In the Internet age, it can seem as if there’s no reason to remember anything. But information doesn’t always amount to knowledge, Louis Menand writes. → Read More
The Changing Meaning of Affirmative Action
The past and the future of a long-embattled policy. → Read More
Is Meritocracy Making Everyone Miserable?
In a renewed debate over élite higher education, the question is whether the system is broken or the whole idea was a terrible mistake, Louis Menand writes. → Read More
How Cultural Anthropologists Redefined Humanity
Louis Menand on the brave band of scholars who set out to save us from racism and sexism. → Read More
The Misconception About Baby Boomers and the Sixties
Conventional wisdom places the boomers at the center of the social and cultural events of the nineteen-sixties. In truth, they had almost nothing to do with that era. → Read More
A Clear Look at Jackson Pollock’s Breakthrough Painting, “Mural”
Louis Menand writes on Jackson Pollock’s “Mural,” an eight-by-twenty-foot painting completed in 1943, which is currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston. → Read More
The Declaration Heard Around the World
It is a valuable feature of our country that we mark its birth by a celebrating not a triumph of force but the statement of an idea that went on to inspire countless other liberation movements. → Read More
“1984” at Seventy: Why We Still Read Orwell’s Book of Prophecy
There are elements of the novel—such as its portrait of the surveillance state, or its portrayal of Newspeak—that seem never to fade from relevance. → Read More
“The Tale of Genji” Comes to Fifth Avenue
Louis Menand on an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art showcases a long tradition of art based on the eleventh-century Japanese novel “The Tale of Genji.” → Read More
What Baseball Teaches Us About Measuring Talent
The clash between data and intuition opens onto a larger debate, Louis Menand writes. → Read More