Masscult and Midcult
  • Published: 15 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9781590174470
  • Imprint: NY Review Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $39.99

Masscult and Midcult

Essays Against the American Grain

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A New York Review Books Original

An uncompromising contrarian, a passionate polemicist, a man of quick wit and wide learning, an anarchist, a pacifist, and a virtuoso of the slashing phrase, Dwight Macdonald was an indefatigable and indomitable critic of America’s susceptibility to well-meaning cultural fakery: all those estimable, eminent, prizewinning works of art that are said to be good and good for you and are not. He dubbed this phenomenon “Midcult” and he attacked it not only on aesthetic but on political grounds. Midcult rendered people complacent and compliant, secure in their common stupidity but neither happy nor free.

This new selection of Macdonald’s finest essays, assembled by John Summers, the editor of The Baffler, reintroduces a remarkable American critic and writer. In the era of smart, sexy, and everything indie, Macdonald remains as pertinent and challenging as ever.
  • Published: 15 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9781590174470
  • Imprint: NY Review Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $39.99
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About the author

Dwight Macdonald

Dwight Macdonald (1906–1982) was an American writer, editor, critic, and political gadfly. A prominent member of the group known as the New York Intellectuals, he served as the editor of first Partisan Review and then his own journal, Politics. He later became a staff writer for The New Yorker, Esquire’s film critic, and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books.

Louis Menand is the Robert M. and Anne T. Bass Professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University, and a staff writer at The New Yorker.

John Summers writes and lectures widely on American history and culture.

Praise for Masscult and Midcult

  • "His literary merits earned him election in 1970 to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.... His witty and frequently learned criticism...appeared in collections that retained their interest and focus when the pages of the original publication had yellowed." --The New York Times
  • "He was America's leading literary intellectual journalist and the best-known cultural critic to the general public.... his finest work makes him a worthy descendent of H.L. Mencken and Edmund Wilson. He is worth remembering." --John Rodden
  • "One reason he continues to be appealing is that he has always, without apology, remained exactly what he is: an intellectual.... Those who read much and care about the quality of what they read ought to be grateful for the consistent tough-mindedness of Dwight MacDonald.... He is provocative and well worth rereading. The quality of his essays is in direct ratio to their ambitiousness." --Larry McMurtry, The Washington Post