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Excerpt from Life in the New World: Or Sketches of American Society Sissy! Sissy! Cried the voice of a nightingale, and a little an el's head had scarce peeped through the when her entire self danced into the room, making a ludicrous courtesy, bowing obsequious y, and exclaiming: No; this is not to be endured Pa raves - runs past me into the street, as if 'change were on fire. Ma yawns - will hear nothing of shopping and growls continually, cash! Cash! Cash Oh! My dear sissy! Our shopping excur sion will be ruined to-day. Sissy, to whom this tirade was address ed, sat resting her left hand upon the sofa, and holding Paul Clifford in her right. She cast a languid, sorrowful look upon her lovely sister. Alas poor Stanton will be distressed enough, she continued. Look, he is just making his tenth promenade toward the Battery. Yesterday he was a most sorrow ful object. I could not have had the heart to refuse him. How could you be so cru el, dear Margaret? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A “brilliant” (The Washington Post), “clear-eyed and incisive” (The New Republic) analysis of how the wealthiest group in American society is making life miserable for everyone—including themselves. In 21st-century America, the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90% have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9% that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country—and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system. They log insane hours at the office and then turn their leisure time into an excuse for more career-building, even as they rely on an underpaid servant class to power their economic success and satisfy their personal needs. They have segregated themselves into zip codes designed to exclude as many people as possible. They have made fitness a national obsession even as swaths of the population lose healthcare and grow sicker. They have created an unprecedented demand for admission to elite schools and helped to fuel the dramatic cost of higher education. They channel their political energy into symbolic conflicts over identity in order to avoid acknowledging the economic roots of their privilege. And they have created an ethos of “merit” to justify their advantages. They are all around us. In fact, they are us—or what we are supposed to want to be. In this “captivating account” (Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone), Matthew Stewart argues that a new aristocracy is emerging in American society and it is repeating the mistakes of history. It is entrenching inequality, warping our culture, eroding democracy, and transforming an abundant economy into a source of misery. He calls for a regrounding of American culture and politics on a foundation closer to the original promise of America.