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Malcolm Cowley called Lewis Mumford “the last of the great humanists,” and indeed, in more than six decades of writing, Mumford made contributions to history, philosophy, literature, art, architectural criticism, and urban planning. The author of some thirty books, Mumford produced a body of work almost unequaled in the twentieth century for its range and richness. A New York Times Notable Book, Donald Miller’s engagingly written biography reveals Mumford’s full and fascinating life. Based on ten years of research and unprecedented access to original and private papers, Miller penetrates Mumford’s reserved public persona and takes in the complete man, his works as well as his days, as he struggles to transform the world — and his own life — in decades marked by unparalleled change.
Reviews
“Miller is an excellent critical guide to Mumford’s voluminous writing.” – The New Yorker
“A gracefully written biography.” – Francesca McKeon, San Francisco Chronicle
“With this large, large-spirited life of Lewis Mumford … Miller takes his place in the first rank of contemporary American biographers.” – David McCullough
“With this large, large-spirited life of Lewis Mumford, Donald L. Miller takes his place in the first rank of contemporary American biographers.”
– David McCullough, author of John Adams
– A sympathetic, carefully researched, intimate biography of one of this century’s most important American intellectuals. Mumford’s private life is discussed in detail, not for lurid effect, nor even merely to help us better understand one man’s moral and psychological struggles, but to illuminate some very fundamental conditions of life in our century.”
– Robert A.M. Stern
“Miller neatly weaves together Mumford’s public career and his private life, making us feel, as every good biographer must, how utterly dependent each is upon the other.”
– Paul Goldberger, The Atlantic Monthly
“This is a remarkably candid, informed account of a protean thinker.”
– Justin Kaplan, author of Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain: A Biography