Thomas Frank, writer and social critic, founded The Baffler in 1988 in Chicago, a magazine devoted to cultural criticism. He has authored three nonfiction books: The Conquest of Coolin 1997 about the advertising industry of the 1960’s and its discovery of the counterculture; One Market Under God in 2000, a study of the mythology of the “New Economy” and the corporate populism of the 1990’s; and in 2004, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, an examination of pop conservatism in his home state and by extension, across the country.
Frank’s writing “is so dazzlingly witty and scornful it can stand comparison with the works of Twain or Mencken,” The Observer (London).