American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism (Random House, October 2010), by H. W. Brands, has been receiving a good deal of media attention, both critical and approving. It was reviewed by John Steele Gordon in the November 18
New York Times, and by Amity Shlaes in the
Wall Street Journal on October 29. Extensive newspaper coverage includes reviews for the
San Francisco Chronicle by T. J. Stiles, by Steve Weinberg for the
Dallas Morning News, and by Ezra Klein for the
Barnes and Noble Review (on Salon.com), An
excerpt is available on the Random House site. An
audio interview of Brands by Lewis Lapham of Bloomberg is available, as are
another with Michael Medved of the American Conservative University and a
video podcast sponsored by the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago. The C-Span video library presents
video of a panel (called "The Age of Titans") from the Texas Book Festival that includes both Brands and T. J. Stiles. Stiles is the author of
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, which
won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.
Brand's book follows in the wake of other recent works on American capitalism, including Joyce Appleby's
Relentless Revolution, noted earlier on this blog.
