Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain

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.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 10/11/2011
ISBN: 9781590174470
Pages: 320
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 7.94h x 5.10w x 0.83d

Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 08/15/2011
New York Times Book Review 10/23/2011 pg. 35
New York Review of Books 03/08/2012 pg. 40