The World in Time

Steve Fraser

Friday, June 15, 2018

The Puritan (detail), by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, c. 1883. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Jacob Ruppert, 1939.

One of America’s most enduring myths involves the fledging country’s supposed fortitude in refusing to import the class structures of its forebears. But, historian Steve Fraser says in the latest episode of The World in Time, “right now, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sustain that delusion.” Or, as he puts it at the beginning of his book Class Matters: The Strange Career of an American Delusion, “Class is the secret of the American experience, its past, present, and likely future. It is a secret known to all, but a source of public embarrassment to acknowledge. It lives on all the surfaces of daily life, yet is driven underground every time its naked self offends cherished illusions about how we deal with each other.”

 

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Steve Fraser, author of Class Matters: The Strange Career of an American Delusion.

 

Thanks to our generous donors. Lead support for this podcast has been provided by Elizabeth “Lisette” Prince. Additional support was provided by James J. “Jimmy” Coleman Jr.

Discussed in this episode

More Podcasts

March 24, 2023

The World in Time:

Jared Yates Sexton

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Midnight Kingdom: A History of Power, Paranoia, and the Coming Crisis. More

Rehab Hiding the Spies in Jericho, c. 1405. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program.

July 13, 2018

The World in Time:

Roland Philipps

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Roland Philipps, author of A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean. More

September 09, 2022

The World in Time:

Kermit Roosevelt III

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of The Nation That Never Was: Reconstructing America’s Story. More

December 03, 2021

The World in Time:

Geoffrey Wheatcroft

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of Churchill’s Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill. More

May 15, 2017

The World in Time:

William Hogeland

Lewis Lapham talks with William Hogeland about the creation of the United States’ first standing army and its victory over a coalition of Indian forces that sought to halt the country’s expansion. More

October 01, 2021

The World in Time:

Michael Knox Beran

Lewis H. Lapham speaks with the author of WASPS: The Splendors and Miseries of an American Aristocracy. More