{"product_id":"mencken-the-american-iconoclast-9780195331295","title":"Mencken: The American Iconoclast","description":"\u003cp\u003eA towering figure on the American cultural landscape  H.L. Mencken stands out as one of our most influential stylists and fearless iconoclasts--the twentieth centurys greatest newspaper journalist  a famous wit  and a constant figure of controversy. Marion Elizabeth Rodgers has written the definitive biography of Mencken  the finest book ever published about this giant of American letters. Rodgers illuminates both the public and the private man  covering the many love affairs  his happy marriage at the age of 50 to Sara Haardt  and his complicated but stimulating friendship with the famed theater critic George Jean Nathan. Rodgers vividly recreates Menckens era: the glittering tapestry of turn-of-the-century America  the roaring twenties  depressed thirties  and the home front during World War II. But the heart of the book is Mencken. When few dared to shatter complacencies  Mencken fought for civil liberties and free speech  playing a prominent role in the Scopes Monkey Trial  battling against press censorship  and exposing pious frauds and empty uplift. The champion of our tongue in The American Language  Mencken also played a pivotal role in defining American letters through The Smart Set and The American Mercury  magazines that introduced such writers as James Joyce  F. Scott Fitzgerald  and Langston Hughes. Drawing on research in more than sixty archives including private collections in the United States and in Germany  previously unseen  on exclusive interviews with Menckens friends  and on his love letters and FBI files  here is the full portrait of one of Americas most colorful and influential men.  \"This biography  the best ever on the sage of Baltimore  is exhaustive but never exhausting  and offers readers more than moderate intelligence and an awfully good time.\" --Martin Nolan  Boston Globe\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45647721988149,"sku":"ByrdShop_019533129X","price":36.67,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195331295.jpg?v=1781697069","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/mencken-the-american-iconoclast-9780195331295","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}