On April 4, 2022, Lapham’s Quarterly held its ninth annual Decades Ball: What Is History? at the Rubin Museum in New York City. The question is borrowed from E.H. Carr’s influential 1961 book What Is History?, which argues that it is the historian who decides which facts, in what context, survive the wreck of time. It is the historian who decides, for instance, that Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon is a fact of history, whereas the crossing of the same river, in Carr’s words, “by millions of other people before or since interests nobody at all.” An epic exploration of the past, from the ancient world to the present day, this year’s Decades Ball featured performances by Bob Balaban, Alec Baldwin, Reeve Carney, Rebecca Hall, Richard Kind, Christopher Lloyd, Morgan Spector, and Reggie D. White. Funds raised at the annual event provide the core support necessary to carry on the work of the magazine. In addition to the evening’s performances, Lapham’s Quarterly presented the 2022 Janus Prize to author Hilary Mantel. The board and staff of Lapham’s Quarterly sincerely thank supporters of the Decades Ball as well as performers at the event. If you would like to make a donation to support our work, please visit this page.
Simon Winchester, Master of Ceremonies
PROGRAM
Bob Balaban reads Voltaire, from Encyclopédie, and Jacob Burckhardt, from Judgments on History and Historians
Reeve Carney reads Dorothy Thompson, from “Who Goes Nazi?”
Richard Kind reads Aristotle, from Poetics; Du Fu, “Jade-Blossom Palace”; and Finley Peter Dunne, from Observations by Mr. Dooley
Morgan Spector reads Will and Ariel Durant, from The Lessons of History
The Janus Prize
Richard Cohen, Introduction
Hilary Mantel, Recipient of the 2022 Janus Prize
Rebecca Hall reads W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”
Reggie D. White reads W.E.B. Du Bois, from Black Reconstruction in America
Alec Baldwin and Christopher Lloyd read Richard Nixon and John Ehrlichman, from White House Tape #498-005