Plutocrats (Penguin Books)

Forget the 1 per cent - it's time to get to grips with the 0.1 per cent...There has always been some gap between rich and poor, but it has never been wider - and now the rich are getting wealthier at such breakneck speed that the middle classes are being squeezed out. While the wealthiest 10 per cent of Americans, for example, receive half the nation's income, the real money flows even higher up, in the top 0.1 per cent. As a transglobal class of highly successful professionals, these self-made oligarchs often have more in common with one another than with their own countrymen. But how is this happening, and who are the people making it happen? Chrystia Freeland, acclaimed business journalist and Global Editor-at-Large of Reuters, has unprecedented access to the richest and most successful people on the planet, from Davos to Dubai, and dissects their lives with intelligence, empathy and objectivity. Pacily written and powerfully researched, Plutocrats could not provide a more timely insight into the current state of Capitalism and its most wealthy players. "A superb piece of reportage...a tremendous illumination".((New Statesman on Freeland's previous title, Sale of the Century)).