Conversations from the Cullman Center, LIVE from NYPL: The Free World: Louis Menand with A.O. Scott

Accessibility Notes:
- A live transcript will be provided. Media is accompanied by alt text to reference before the program or by audio description.
- ASL interpretation is available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance: email accessibility@nypl.org or use this Gmail template.

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

 Tonight's program and chat are hosted by YouTube.  We value your privacy and want you to understand how you and the Library use this service, particularly that by participating you might give data about yourself. The Library does not control that data. We suggest that you read Google’s Privacy Policy and NYPL's Privacy Policy, especially the section “Third-Party Library Services Providers.” To learn more, please visit this FAQ.

 Submit questions  via chat, anonymous Google Form, email publicprograms@nypl.org, or use this Gmail template.

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.

The program will be streamed live on this page. If you encounter any issues, please join us on NYPL's YouTube channel.

• Borrow: NYPL Catalog
• E-Book app: SimplyE, available on iOS and Android
• Purchase: The Library Shop — proceeds benefit the New York Public Library

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

Louis Menand suggests these titles for further reading:

• Chance and Circumstance by Carolyn Brown — NYPL Catalog ; Bookshare
• Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon — NYPL Catalog ; Bookshare
• Warhol by Blake Gopnik — NYPL Catalog ; NYPL Talking Books ; Bookshare
• Memoirs 1925-1950 by George Kennan — NYPL Research
• Tristes Tropiques by Claude Lévi-Strauss — NYPL Catalog ; Bookshare

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.

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.

Support the Library.  The New York Public Library's free services and resources are made possible thanks to the support of the Friends of the Library. Join this group of Library lovers today and take advantage of special membership benefits, like invitations to members-only virtual events, discounts at the Library Shop, and more. Join Today. 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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.