Louis Menand

Louis Menand (first name pronounced 'lü-E) is a prominent American writer and academic, best known for his book The Metaphysical Club (2001), an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America. It includes detailed biographical material on Mr Justice Holmes, William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey. Menand contributes regularly to The New Yorker (for which he is a staff writer), and the The New York Review of Books, among other publications. He is a faculty member of Harvard University.

A graduate of Pomona College, Menand received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1980 and was Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York before moving to Harvard in 2003. His principal field of academic interest is 19th and 20th century American cultural history.

The Metaphysical Club won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the 2002 Francis Parkman Prize. In 2002, Menand published American Studies, a collection of essays on prominent figures in American culture.

Reference

• The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, ISBN 0374199639 (1st hardcover ed.), ISBN 0374528497 (1st paperback ed.)

See also

• Pragmatism
• William James
• Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

External links

• Harvard University Department of English and American Literature and Language (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~english/people/facultyprofiles.html)
• Former CUNY biography (http://web.gc.cuny.edu/English/fac_lmenand.html)
• Writings for NYROB (http://www.nybooks.com/authors/99)
• Menand's humorous exegesis of The Cat in the Hat on NPR's "All Things Considered" (http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=880228)
• Menand talks about The Metaphysical Club on "All Things Considered" (http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1123425)
• Louis Menand on writing (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?040628crbo_books1)