Aristocracy, American Style: Class Privilege and the Persistence of Elite Power

By: Isenberg, Nancy

Published by Viking, 2026

"In Aristocracy, American Style, historian Nancy Isenberg shows that the American feel-good myths of the self-made man and "opportunity for all" have both distracted its citizens and supplied a durable logic that carries privilege across generations. Drawing on public policy, popular culture, and political rhetoric, Isenberg demonstrates how American elites have long borrowed aristocratic forms while media infrastructures keep the people awed by scandal and celebrity churn. Aristocracy, American Style reframes inequality as the predictable outcome of an old, distinctly American regime, and shows what it costs a republic to mistake prestige for merit"--