THE NEW GILDED AGE (Modern Library Classics)

About this book

In keeping with its tradition of sending writers out into America to take the pulse of our citizens and civilization The New Yorker over the past decade has reported on the unprecedented economy and how it has changed the ways in which we live. This new anthology collects the best of these profiles essays and articles which depict in the magazines inimitable style the mega- meta- monster-wealth created in this our new Gilded Age. Who are the barons of the new economy? Profiles of Martha Stewart by Joan Didion Bill Gates by Ken Auletta and Alan Greenspan by John Cassidy reveal the personal histories of our most influential citizens people who affect our daily lives even more than we know. Who really understands the Web? Malcolm Gladwell analyzes the economics of e-commerce in "Clicks and Mortar." Profiles of two of the Internets most respected analysts George Gilder and Mary Meeker expose the human factor in hot stocks declining issues and the instant fortunes created by an IPO. And in "The Kids in the Conference Room " Nicholas Lemann meets McKinsey & Companys business analysts the twenty-two-year-olds hired to advise Americas CEOs on the future of their business and the economy. And what defines this new age one that was unimaginable even five years ago? Susan Orlean hangs out with one of New York Citys busiest real estate brokers ("I Want This Apartment"). A clicking stampede of Manolo Blahniks can be heard in Michael Specters "High-Heel Heaven." Tony Horwitz visits the little inn in the little town where moguls graze ("The Inn Crowd"). Meghan Daum flees her maxed-out credit cards. Brendan Gill lunches with Brooke Astor at the Metropolitan Club. And Calvin Trillin in his masterly "Marisa and Jeff " portrays the young and fresh faces of greed. Eras often begin gradually and end abruptly and the people who live through extraordinary periods of history do so unaware of the unique qualities of their time. The flappers and tycoons of the 1920s thought the bootleg and the speculation would flow perpetuallyuntil October 1929. The shoulder pads and the junk bonds of the 1980s came to feel normaluntil October 1987. Read as a whole The New Gilded Age portrays America here today nowan epoch so exuberant and flush and in thrall of risk that forecasts of its conclusion are dismissed as Luddite brays. Yet under The New Yorkers examination our current day is ex-posed as a special time in history: affluent and aggressive prosperous and peaceful wired and wild and ultimately finite.