"Between 1920 and 1950 America saw an unprecedented expansion of wealth and power underwritten by technological innovation, cultural confidence, and victory in war. American elites won World War II, rebuilt the world order with America at its head, inaugurated the jet age and put a man on the moon. The boom led to a larger, richer middle that confirmed America's best ideals. By the early 1970s that ended. Since then, American elites have captured...

A modern take on one of the most famous stories of all time. In 1805 when we first meet Pierre, Natasha, and Andrei, they are all part of St. Petersburg's glittering elite, but are fired up with youthful ambition to find meaning in their lives. As everything they thought they knew is questioned, Pierre, Andrei and Natasha find themselves in a time when Russian society is about to change forever.

"1938. The Golden Age of Hollywood. Palm trees and movie stars. Film studios pumping out musicals, westerns, and gangster films at a furious pace. Everyone wants to be a star--except society girl and aspiring astronomer Kate Hildebrand, who'd rather study them in the night sky. She's already famous after a childhood tragedy turned her into a newspaper headline. What she craves is stability. But when Kate has to move to Hollywood to live with her washed-up...

"Kendra James began her professional life selling a lie. As an admissions officer specializing in diversity recruitment for select prep schools, her job was persuading students and families to embark on the same perilous journey, attending cutthroat and largely white schools similar to The Taft School, an elite institution in Connecticut where she had been the first African-American legacy student only a few years earlier. Forced to reflect on her...

A haunting memoir of teaching English to the sons of North Korea's ruling class during the last six months of Kim Jong-il's reign. Every day, three times a day, the students march in two straight lines, singing praises to Kim Jong-il and North Korea: Without you, there is no motherland. Without you, there is no us. It is a chilling scene, but gradually Suki Kim, too, learns the tune and, without noticing, begins to hum it. It is 2011, and all universities...

American breakdown dissects how, in the space of a generation, the pillars that sustained the once-dominant superpower have been dangerously eroded. From government to business, from media to medicine--the strength and security of the American experiment have been weakened by a widening gap between the elites who control these institutions and the public. At the root of this breakdown is a precipitous fall in Americans' trust in their political, business...

"A groundbreaking manifesto for people searching for the kind of insight on leading, thinking, and living that elite schools should be--but aren't--providing"--

"At once incendiary and icy, mischievous, and provocative, celebratory and elegiac, a deeply felt meditation on race, sex, and American culture through the prism of the author's rarefied upbringing and education among a black elite concerned to distance itself from whites and the black generality, while tirelessly measuring itself against both. Born in 1947 in upper-crust black Chicago--her father was for years head of pediatrics at Provident, at...

"The author, journalist, television commentator, and longtime Washington insider reflects on the spiritual quest that has brought deeper meaning to her life--and kept her grounded within the high-powered political world of Washington, D.C.'s elite--her renowned writing career, her celebrity marriage, and her legendary role as doyenne of the capital's social scene. In this emotionally involving, illuminating memoir, the legendary Washington Post journalist,...