The anthropology of elites: power, culture, and the complexities of distinction

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Hardback, ISBN 9781137290540, 266 p.

Summary: A fascinating array of ethnographic and theoretically relevant cases - several on Africa - this book is timely and topical in combining substantial new historical and ethnographic material about elites. Case studies include financial elite traders in South Africa, the white former colonial elite of Mauritius, the Polish gentry, and professional elites, with queries about power, culture, distinction and marginalization. The focus on elites from an anthropological perspective makes a significant contribution to explaining numerous and often paradoxical aspects of elites, their behaviour, their position and their relationship with other social groupings.