How did the Cold War define and shape American art and intellectual life?

Louis Mennand will be here to talk about his new book, The Free World.

What makes for a great American essay?

Philip Lopate will join us to talk about his anthologies, The Glorious American essay,

and the Golden Age of the American essay. Elizabeth Harris will be here with the latest in publishing

news. Plus, we'll talk about what we and the wider world are reading.

This is the Book Review Podcast from The New York Times. It's May 14th.

I'm Pamela Paul.

Louis Mennand joins us now from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the author of the Metaphysical

Club, and his newest book is called The Free World, Art and Thought in the Cold War. Luke,

thanks for being here.

Thank you for having me.

So you are actually in the Widener Library at Harvard University, as we speak.

That's correct. Yes. I'm in the office in the stacks in which I wrote the entire book.

And I don't think I could have written the book if I hadn't had access to these incredible

library resources at Harvard.

How long did you spend researching the book? Do you tend to do all of your research and

then begin writing or do you do both as you go along?

I spent about 10 years on the book, and I do research for each chapter, and I write that

chapter, and then I move on to the next chapter. So each chapter took a long time to do it,

because I wanted to do a fair amount of research to get a feel for the period and a feel for

what other people had written about it.

...