- Fortune's Child 1980; ISBN 0-385-14887-9
- Money and Class in America 1988; ISBN 1-55584-109-0
- Imperial Masquerade 1990; ISBN 1-55584-449-9 (hardcover); ISBN 0-517-11018-0
- The Wish for Kings: Democracy at Bay 1993; ISBN 0-8021-1446-6
- Hotel America 1995; ISBN 1-85984-952-0 (hardcover); ISBN 1-85984-062-0 (paperback)
- Waiting for the Barbarians 1997; ISBN 1-85984-882-6
- Lapham's Rules of Influence 1999; ISBN 0-679-42605-1
- The Agony of Mammon 1999; ISBN 1-85984-710-2
- Lights, Camera, Democracy! 2001; ISBN 0-679-64713-9; ISBN 0-8129-9162-1
- Theater of War 2003; ISBN 1-56584-772-5 (hardcover); ISBN 1-56584-847-0 (paperback)
- 30 Satires (a collection of essays) 2003; ISBN 1-56584-846-2
- Gag Rule 2004; ISBN 1-59420-017-3
- With the Beatles 2005; (Melville House Publishing); ISBN 978-0-976658-32-0
- Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration, by Lewis H. Lapham (The New Press: 2006), 288 pages; ISBN 1-59558-112-X
His writing has appeared in
Life,
Commentary,
Vanity Fair,
National Review, Yale Literary Magazine,
ELLE,
Fortune,
Forbes,
American Spectator,
The New York Times,
The Walrus,
Maclean's,
The Observer (London), and
the Wall Street Journal. Lapham also served as a judge for the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.
Lapham is the host and author of the PBS series,
America's Century, and he was host of the weekly PBS series,
Bookmark.Lapham is currently the host of
The World in Time: radio discussions with scholars and historians on Bloomberg Radio that open the doors of history behind the events in the news. Podcasts of the weekly talks are available at Bloomberg.com .
Lapham wrote
The American Ruling Class (2005), a movie done in documentary style and featuring fictional characters and real people, i.e. Bill Bradley, Hodding Carter III and Barbara Ehrenreich, author of
Nickel and Dimed, pondering the question "is there a ruling class in America?" Lapham states at the movie's conclusion that "if you're not in, you're out." The movie aired on the Sundance Channel, July 30, 2007.