What makes the super rich tick? Is there a specific mindset that sets ultra-high net worth individuals apart from the rest of us? Are they meticulous planners - or is their wealth an unintended by-product of their entrepreneurial activities? Is it nature or nurture that sets them on the path to great financial success? This book represents one of the most comprehensive modern-day studies of the super rich. Based on interviews with members of the financial elite, and rigorous academic analysis, this empirical study investigates the link between personality traits and the creation of enormous wealth. In short, the book provides a fascinating insight into the world of the super rich - and how they think, behave and make their fortunes.

What do people in the United States and Europe think about the rich? There are several thousand books and articles on stereotypes and prejudices directed at countless different social groups. In contrast, there has only been sporadic research into stereotypes about the rich and no published comprehensive, scientific study on the topic—until now. Negative prejudices and stereotypes have repeatedly been used to justify the exclusion, expulsion, persecution, and murder of minorities who have been scapegoated at times of social crises. The 20th century is full of examples of wealthy people, including capitalists, kulaks, and other groups, who were victims of deadly persecution. These were exceptional situations but, even in moderate forms, prejudice against social groups harms society as a whole—not just the rich—through economic or physical destruction and declining prosperity. In The Rich in Public Opinion: What We Think When We Think about Wealth, historian and sociologist Rainer Zitelmann examines attitudes about wealth and the wealthy in four industrialized Western countries: Germany, the United States, France, and Great Britain. Consisting of three parts, this book first surveys the literature about stereotypes and prejudices. Zitelmann then reports on never‐before‐seen data commissioned by the polling firm Ipsos MORI and from the Allensbach Institute, which conducted identical surveys of residents of the four countries regarding various aspects of their attitudes toward wealth. Lastly, The Rich in Public Opinion looks at the portrayal of the rich in media and film. People often admire the wealthy, but Zitelmann shows that people can also envy them—a sometimes toxic envy that can put lives at risk. This book aims to examine how we think about a minority that, while undeniably powerful, can still be the subject of scapegoating—often with dire effects for us all.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today’s news. "Impassioned.... Entertaining reading.” —The Washington Post Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can—except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. They rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; they lavishly reward “thought leaders” who redefine “change” in ways that preserve the status quo; and they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm. Giridharadas asks hard questions: Why, for example, should our gravest problems be solved by the unelected upper crust instead of the public institutions it erodes by lobbying and dodging taxes? His groundbreaking investigation has already forced a great, sorely needed reckoning among the world’s wealthiest and those they hover above, and it points toward an answer: Rather than rely on scraps from the winners, we must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world—a call to action for elites and everyday citizens alike.

Inside the hidden lives of the global “1%”, this book examines the networks, social practices, marriages, and machinations of Pakistan’s elite. Benefitting from rare access and keen analytical insight, Rosita Armytage’s rich study reveals the daily, even mundane, ways in which elites contribute to and shape the inequality that characterizes the modern world. Operating in a rapidly developing economic environment, the experience of Pakistan’s wealthiest and most powerful members contradicts widely held assumptions that economic growth is leading to increasingly impersonalized and globally standardized economic and political structures.

How the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite, and how their consumer habits affect us all In today’s world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption—like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and TOMS shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children’s growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates. In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society “the aspirational class” and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide. Exploring the rise of the aspirational class, Currid-Halkett considers how much has changed since the 1899 publication of Thorstein Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class. In that inflammatory classic, which coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption,” Veblen described upper-class frivolities: men who used walking sticks for show, and women who bought silver flatware despite the effectiveness of cheaper aluminum utensils. Now, Currid-Halkett argues, the power of material goods as symbols of social position has diminished due to their accessibility. As a result, the aspirational class has altered its consumer habits away from overt materialism to more subtle expenditures that reveal status and knowledge. And these transformations influence how we all make choices. With a rich narrative and extensive interviews and research, The Sum of Small Things illustrates how cultural capital leads to lifestyle shifts and what this forecasts, not just for the aspirational class but for everyone.

"THE BOOK CHINA DOESN'T WANT YOU TO READ."--CNN​ A riveting insider's story of how the Party and big money work in China today, by a man who, with his wife, Whitney Duan, rose to the zenith of power and wealth--and then fell out of favor. She was disappeared four years ago. News of this book led to a phone call from Whitney, proof that she's alive. As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China's male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China's Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy, he vaulted into China's billionaire class. Soon they were developing the massive air cargo facility at Beijing International Airport, and they followed that feat with the creation of one of Beijing's premier hotels. They were dazzlingly successful, traveling in private jets, funding multi-million-dollar buildings and endowments, and purchasing expensive homes, vehicles, and art. But in 2017, their fates diverged irrevocably when Desmond, while residing overseas with his son, learned that his now ex-wife Whitney had vanished along with three coworkers. This is both Desmond's story and Whitney's, because she has not been able to tell it herself.

Ruling America offers a panoramic history of our country's ruling elites from the time of the American Revolution to the present. At its heart is the greatest of American paradoxes: How have tiny minorities of the rich and privileged consistently exercised so much power in a nation built on the notion of rule by the people? In a series of thought-provoking essays, leading scholars of American history examine every epoch in which ruling economic elites have shaped our national experience. They explore how elites came into existence, how they established their dominance over public affairs, and how their rule came to an end. The contributors analyze the elite coalition that led the Revolution and then examine the antebellum planters of the South and the merchant patricians of the North. Later chapters vividly portray the Gilded Age "robber barons," the great finance capitalists in the age of J. P. Morgan, and the foreign-policy "Establishment" of the post-World War II years. The book concludes with a dissection of the corporate-led counter-revolution against the New Deal characteristic of the Reagan and Bush era. Rarely in the last half-century has one book afforded such a comprehensive look at the ways elite wealth and power have influenced the American experiment with democracy. At a time when the distribution of wealth and power has never been more unequal, Ruling America is of urgent contemporary relevance.