Malice that cannot speak its name, cold-blooded but secret hostility, impotent desire, hidden rancor and spite--all cluster at the center of envy. Envy clouds thought, writes Joseph Epstein, clobbers generosity, precludes any hope of serenity, and ends in shriveling the heart. Of the seven deadly sins, he concludes, only envy is no fun at all.
Writing in a conversational, erudite, self-deprecating style that wears its learning lightly, Epstein takes us on a stimulating tour of the many faces of envy. He considers what great thinkers--such as John Rawls, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche--have...

In these vivid portraits of prominent twentieth-century intellectuals, Edward Shils couples the sensitivity of a biographer with the profound knowledge of a highly respected scholar. Ranging as widely across various disciplines as Shils himself did, the essays gathered here share a distaste for faddists who "run with the intellectual mob" and a deep respect for intellectuals who maintain their integrity under great pressure.
Highlights include an affectionate treatment of Leo Szilard, the physicist whose involvement with the development of the atomic bomb led him to work ceaselessly to...

Snobbery is Epstein's deliciously readable (Harper's Bazaar) collection of essays skewering all manner of elitism. Filled with dishy detail, Snobbery takes up its subject in contemporary America, examining the discriminating qualities in all.

The author sketches a witty and incisive anatomy of the modern friendship: its duties and requirements, the various kinds of friendships, the differences between male and female friendships, the complications marriage creates, and even what happens when sex enters the equation.

Epstein's sixth collection of personal pieces winningly and brilliantly rounds off his 23-year tenure as editor of The American Scholar. Among the topics covered are naps, Gershwin aging, name-dropping, long books, pet peeves, talent vs. genius, Anglophilia, and surgery--the head and the heart. Excerpted in The New Yorker.

"Ambition is not what it used to be," writes Joseph Epstein. The desire to get ahead no longer evokes the same admiration it once did indeed, modern novelists seem hardly able to deal with ambition without a sneer. But is ambition necessarily synonymous with ruthless, narrow self-interest? Or, as Mr. Epstein suggests, is it "the fuel of achievement" an honorable way to influence and advance civilization? Mr. Epstein s sketches of eminent Americans from Benjamin Franklin (that premier go-getter) to Henry Ford, Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Adlai Stevenson, and the Rockefeller,...

Writing as a memoirist, polemicist, literary critic, and amused observer of contemporary culture, the author of Snobbery and Friendship presents this engaging collection of essays that captures his witty, entertaining responses to the richness and variety of life.

Part of the acclaimed Eminent Lives series, Alexis de Tocqueville dissects the legacy of the celebrated cultural observer. Joseph Epstein, distinguished literary historian and author of the bestselling Snobbery: The American Version, provides a fresh account of the celebrated writer's classic travels in America, and compares what de Tocqueville witnessed to the current state of our nation.

Gossip is no trivial matter; despite its reputation, Epstein argues, it is an eternal and necessary human enterprise. Proving that he himself is a master of the art, Epstein serves up delightful mini-biographies of the Great Gossips of the Western World, along with many choice bits from his own experience. He also makes a powerful case that gossip has morphed from its old-fashioned best clever, mocking, a great private pleasure to a corrosive new-school version, thanks to the reach of the mass media and the Internet.
Written in his trademark erudite and witty style, Gossip captures...