The Economist Best Books of 2024 The Times Best Ideas Books of 2024 A uniquely data-rich
analysis of the British elite from the Victorian era to today: who gets in how they get there
what they like and look like where they go to school and what politics they perpetuate.
Think of the British elite and familiar caricatures spring to mind. But are today's power
brokers a conservative chumocracy born to privilege and anointed at Eton and Oxford? Or is a
new progressive elite emerging with different values and political instincts? Aaron Reeves and
Sam Friedman combed through a trove of data in search of an answer scrutinizing the profiles
interests and careers of over 125 000 members of the British elite from the late 1890s to
today. At the heart of this meticulously researched study is the historical database of Who's
Who but Reeves and Friedman also mined genealogical records examined probate data and
interviewed over 200 leading figures from a wide range of backgrounds and professions to
uncover who runs Britain how they think and what they want. What they found is that there is
less movement at the top than we think. Yes there has been some progress on including women
and Black and Asian Brits but those born into the top 1 percent are just as likely to get into
the elite today as they were 125 years ago. What has changed is how elites present themselves.
Today's elite pedal hard to convince us they are perfectly ordinary. Why should we care?
Because the elites we have affect the politics we get. While scholars have long proposed that
the family you are born into and the schools you attend leave a mark on the exercise of power
the empirical evidence has been thin-until now.
