Lewis Lapham discusses his collection of essays, Theater of War. Taking the war on terror as the most recent example, Lapham considers America's long tradition of gratuitous conflict, and its quixotic attempts at arbitrating 'good' and 'freedom,' culminating in the endowment of nation status upon the hijackers that began the present war. Lapham shows that the recent behavior of the United States' government is consistent with the practices of past administrations. Mr. Lapham questions the motives and feasibility of our country's ongoing crusades against the world's evildoers.
Lewis H. Lapham is a national correspondent for *Harper's Magazine*. He is also the editor of *Lapham's Quarterly*, a journal of history which debuted spring of 2007. Mr. Lapham is the author of numerous books, including* Waiting for the Barbarians, Theater of War, Gag Rule,* and *Pretensions to Empire*. *The New York Times* has likened him to H.L. Mencken; *Vanity Fair *has suggested a strong resemblance to Mark Twain, and Tom Wolfe compared him to Montaigne. Mr. Lapham currently writes *Notebook*, a bi-monthly essay for *Harper's* that won a National Magazine Award in 1995 for exhibiting an exhilarating point of view in an age of conformity. He has also written for *Life, Commentary, the National Review, the Yale Literary Magazine, Elle, Fortune, Forbes, the American Spectator, Vanity Fair, Travel and Leisure, Golf, Golf Digest, Parade, Channels, Maclean's, the London Observer, the New York Times*, and *the Wall Street Journal*. Lewis H. Lapham was inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame in February of 2007. A native of San Francisco, Mr. Lapham has studied history at Yale College and Cambridge University.