Cullen Murphy
Author of Are We Rome?: The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America
About the Author
Cullen Murphy is the managing editor of The Atlantic Monthly. His books include Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage and Just Curious: Essays. For nearly twenty years he has written the text of the internationally recognized comic strip Prince Valiant. He lives in Massachusetts.
Works by Cullen Murphy
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1952-09-01
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New Rochelle, New York, USA
- Education
- Amherst College (1974)
- Occupations
- journalist
editor - Organizations
- The Wilson Quarterly
The Atlantic Monthly
Vanity Fair - Short biography
- Cullen Murphy joined Vanity Fair as its editor at large in 2006. Before that, he spent more than two decades at The Atlantic Monthly, serving as managing editor. For 25 years he wrote the comic strip Prince Valiant, which was drawn by his father, the illustrator John Cullen Murphy. He has also written a number of books, among them Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage (HarperCollins, 1992), with co-author William L. Rathje, the essay collection Just Curious (Houghton Mifflin, 1995), and The Word According to Eve: Women and the Bible in Ancient Times and Our Own (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). His most recent book, Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (Houghton Mifflin), was published in 2007 and excerpted in Vanity Fair. Murphy is a member of the board of trustees of Amherst College, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Emily Dickinson Museum. He lives in Massachusetts.
http://cullenmurphy.com/biography
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Reviews
Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage by William L. Rathje
This book may have been written thirty years ago, but much of what is told is still relevant. The myths that it debunks continue to crop up every once in a while such as the Pampers in landfills, polysterene in landfills, the biodegradability of plastics and paper, and much more. The politics of trash is fascinating as is the science behind biodegradability (which rarely happens despite claims that it does). The history of trash and its influence on civilizations and what can be learned from trash in archeology is worth the reading of the book. I never knew that there was so much I didn't know about garbage, including all the terms used to describe various types of trash. The information in this book is told with humor and is based on a very thorough and scientifically rigorous Garbage Project.… (more)
Warm and funny book. Cullen Murphy, who is a good writer, tells us of the cluster of Connecticut cartoonists who illustrated newspapers and magazines in mid-twentieth century USA.
All in all, this is a charming remembrance of the time when the comic strips were in their predominance, and when the state of Connecticut was basically one big colony for many of the practitioners. If you ever cared about the newspaper comics, or pre-digital media, you'll enjoy this book.
This book isn't terribly accurate in any important way - as history or prophecy. I'm glad I got it on sale.
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Statistics
- Works
- 9
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 1,121
- Popularity
- #22,922
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 30
- ISBNs
- 28
