PhilPaine.com

Rothkopf has cre­at­ed an inten­tion­al rein­car­na­tion of C. Wright Mills’ old Pow­er Elite, but with­out Mills’ ide­o­log­i­cal fool­ish­ness. With his unusu­al­ly broad expe­ri­ence in busi­ness, jour­nal­ism, Wall Street, the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary, the Intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty, and gov­ern­ment ― but nev­er in a posi­tion where he was sub­li­mat­ed into, or iden­ti­fied with the cir­cles of pow­er ― Rothkopf is in an ide­al posi­tion to give a real­is­tic descrip­tion of the rough­ly six thou­sand peo­ple who exer­cise the most pow­er and influ­ence on our globe. I don’t always agree with his analy­sis, and his con­cep­tu­al cat­e­gories are thor­ough­ly con­ven­tion­al, but the book is essen­tial for any­one who wants to form a plau­si­ble pic­ture of how the world works. This has always been the aim of my research­es. Most things in this book ring true, as far as I’m concerned.