Try free for 30 days
-
The Sum of Small Things
- A Theory of the Aspirational Class
- Narrated by: Rachel Dulude
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $31.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Uneasy Street
- The Anxieties of Affluence
- By: Rachel Sherman
- Narrated by: Liz Thompson
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From TV's Real Housewives to The Wolf of Wall Street, our popular culture portrays the wealthy as materialistic and entitled. But what do we really know about those who live on "easy street"? In this penetrating book, Rachel Sherman draws on rare in-depth interviews that she conducted with 50 affluent New Yorkers - including hedge fund financiers and corporate lawyers, professors and artists, and stay-at-home mothers - to examine their lifestyle choices and their understanding of privilege.
-
-
Intriguing
- By Robert Nicholson on 24-09-2020
-
Status and Culture
- How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
- By: W. David Marx
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Status signaling isn’t just the province of the immature or insecure but a fundamental human need to secure social standing. It drives our behavior, forms our tastes, determines what we buy, and ultimately shapes who we are. It’s what’s behind “cool” and what drives fashion, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and dog breeds—and even the outsize influence of unpopular things with the “right” audience.
-
-
Accessible and enjoyable
- By Mungo on 22-03-2024
-
The Privileged Poor
- How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students
- By: Anthony Abraham Jack
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Getting in is only half the battle. The Privileged Poor reveals how - and why - disadvantaged students struggle at elite colleges and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive. The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors - and their coffers - to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Jack reveals that the struggles of less privileged students continue long after they've arrived on campus.
-
The Status Game
- On Human Life and How to Play It
- By: Will Storr
- Narrated by: Will Storr
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What drives our political and moral beliefs? What makes us like some things and dislike others? What shapes how we behave, and misbehave, in a group? What makes you, you? For centuries, philosophers and scholars have described human behaviour in terms of sex, power and money. In The Status Game, best-selling author Will Storr radically turns this thinking on its head by arguing that it is our irrepressible craving for status that ultimately defines who we are.
-
-
rethink your assumptions
- By levonian on 22-11-2023
-
Dream Hoarders
- How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It
- By: Richard V. Reeves
- Narrated by: Richard V. Reeves
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Reeves shows, the growing separation between the upper middle class and everyone else can be seen in family structure, neighborhoods, attitudes, and lifestyle. Those at the top of the income ladder are becoming more effective at passing on their status to their children, reducing overall social mobility. The result is not just an economic divide but a fracturing of American society along class lines. Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults.
-
Very Important People
- Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit
- By: Ashley Mears
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sociologist and former fashion model takes listeners inside the elite global party circuit of "models and bottles" to reveal how beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men.
-
-
Starts well but doesn’t detail beyond the obvious
- By Anonymous User on 19-05-2023
-
Uneasy Street
- The Anxieties of Affluence
- By: Rachel Sherman
- Narrated by: Liz Thompson
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From TV's Real Housewives to The Wolf of Wall Street, our popular culture portrays the wealthy as materialistic and entitled. But what do we really know about those who live on "easy street"? In this penetrating book, Rachel Sherman draws on rare in-depth interviews that she conducted with 50 affluent New Yorkers - including hedge fund financiers and corporate lawyers, professors and artists, and stay-at-home mothers - to examine their lifestyle choices and their understanding of privilege.
-
-
Intriguing
- By Robert Nicholson on 24-09-2020
-
Status and Culture
- How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change
- By: W. David Marx
- Narrated by: Daniel Henning
- Length: 13 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Status signaling isn’t just the province of the immature or insecure but a fundamental human need to secure social standing. It drives our behavior, forms our tastes, determines what we buy, and ultimately shapes who we are. It’s what’s behind “cool” and what drives fashion, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and dog breeds—and even the outsize influence of unpopular things with the “right” audience.
-
-
Accessible and enjoyable
- By Mungo on 22-03-2024
-
The Privileged Poor
- How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students
- By: Anthony Abraham Jack
- Narrated by: Mirron Willis
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Getting in is only half the battle. The Privileged Poor reveals how - and why - disadvantaged students struggle at elite colleges and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive. The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors - and their coffers - to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Jack reveals that the struggles of less privileged students continue long after they've arrived on campus.
-
The Status Game
- On Human Life and How to Play It
- By: Will Storr
- Narrated by: Will Storr
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What drives our political and moral beliefs? What makes us like some things and dislike others? What shapes how we behave, and misbehave, in a group? What makes you, you? For centuries, philosophers and scholars have described human behaviour in terms of sex, power and money. In The Status Game, best-selling author Will Storr radically turns this thinking on its head by arguing that it is our irrepressible craving for status that ultimately defines who we are.
-
-
rethink your assumptions
- By levonian on 22-11-2023
-
Dream Hoarders
- How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do About It
- By: Richard V. Reeves
- Narrated by: Richard V. Reeves
- Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Reeves shows, the growing separation between the upper middle class and everyone else can be seen in family structure, neighborhoods, attitudes, and lifestyle. Those at the top of the income ladder are becoming more effective at passing on their status to their children, reducing overall social mobility. The result is not just an economic divide but a fracturing of American society along class lines. Upper-middle-class children become upper-middle-class adults.
-
Very Important People
- Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit
- By: Ashley Mears
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sociologist and former fashion model takes listeners inside the elite global party circuit of "models and bottles" to reveal how beautiful young women are used to boost the status of men.
-
-
Starts well but doesn’t detail beyond the obvious
- By Anonymous User on 19-05-2023
-
The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son
- Perspectives, Ideology, and Wisdom
- By: J. D. Rockefeller
- Narrated by: Rick Font
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The 38 letters written by Rockefeller to his son imparting his perspectives, ideology, and wisdom to his son.
-
Primates of Park Avenue
- Adventures Inside the Secret Sisterhood of Manhattan Moms
- By: Wednesday Martin Ph.D.
- Narrated by: Madeleine Maby
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Like an urban Dian Fossey, Wednesday Martin decodes the primate social behaviors of Upper East Side mothers in a brilliantly original and witty memoir about her adventures assimilating into that most secretive and elite tribe. After marrying a man from the Upper East Side and moving to the neighborhood, Wednesday Martin struggled to fit in. Drawing on her background in anthropology and primatology, she tried looking at her new world through that lens, and suddenly things fell into place.
-
-
Fun & light.
- By Skye woodward on 11-06-2015
-
How to Be a Rich Man...Or Woman!
- Everyone's Step by Step Guide to Creating Wealth
- By: Byron Tully
- Narrated by: Moe Egan
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this informative and enlightening book, author Byron Tully reveals step-by-step strategies and time-tested techniques that you can use to become rich.
-
The 9.9 Percent
- The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture
- By: Matthew Stewart
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 21st century America, the top 0.1 percent of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90 percent have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9 percent that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country - and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system.
-
Paying for the Party
- How College Maintains Inequality
- By: Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Laura T. Hamilton
- Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
- Length: 10 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two young women, dormitory mates, embark on their education at a big state university. Five years later, one is earning a good salary at a prestigious accounting firm. With no loans to repay, she lives in a fashionable apartment with her fiance. The other woman, saddled with burdensome debt and a low GPA, is still struggling to finish her degree in tourism. In an era of skyrocketing tuition and mounting concern over whether college is "worth it", Paying for the Party is an indispensable contribution to the dialogue assessing the state of American higher education.
-
I Left My Homework in the Hamptons
- What I Learned Teaching the Children of the One Percent
- By: Blythe Grossberg
- Narrated by: Ann Marie Gideon
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ben orders daily room service while living in a five-star hotel. Olivia collects luxury-brand sneakers worn by celebrities. Dakota jets off to Rome when she needs to avoid drama at school. Welcome to the inner circle of New York’s richest families, where academia is an obsession, wealth does nothing to soothe status anxiety and parents will try just about anything to gain a competitive edge in the college admissions rat race.
-
Flawless
- Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital
- By: Elise Hu
- Narrated by: Elise Hu
- Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
K-beauty has captured imaginations worldwide by promising a kind of mesmerizing perfection. Its skincare and makeup products—creams packaged to look like milkshakes or pandas, and snail mucus face masks, to name a few—work together to fascinate us, champion consumerism, and invite us to indulge. In the four years Elise spent in Seoul as NPR’s bureau chief, the global K-beauty industry quadrupled. Today it's worth $10 billion and is only getting bigger as it rides the Hallyu wave around the globe.
-
-
Helping make sense of beauty culture
- By Eb on 23-08-2023
-
The Old Money Book 2nd Edition - Expanded and Updated
- How to Live Better While Spending Less - Secrets of America's Upper Class
- By: Byron Tully
- Narrated by: Moe Egan
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Old Money Book details how anyone from any background can adopt the values, priorities, and habits of America's upper class in order to live a richer life. This entertaining and informative work reveals for the first time the core values that shape the discreet - but truly affluent - Old Money way of life. Author Byron Tully then details how Old Money does it, offering time-tested advice on everything from clothes and cars to finances and furnishings.
-
How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement
- By: Fredrik deBoer
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 2020, while the COVID-19 pandemic raged, the US was hit by a ripple of political discontent the likes of which had not been seen since the 1960s. The spark was the viral video of the horrific police murder of an unarmed Black man. The killing of George Floyd galvanized a nation already reeling from COVID and a toxic political cycle. Tens of thousands poured into the streets to protest. The entire country suddenly seemed to be roaring for change in one voice. Then nothing much happened. Fredrik deBoer explores why these passionate movements failed and how they could succeed in the future.
-
The WEIRDest People in the World
- How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous
- By: Joseph Henrich
- Narrated by: Korey Jackson
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The WEIRDest People in the World, Joseph Henrich draws on cutting-edge research in anthropology, psychology, economics, and evolutionary biology to explore these questions and more. He illuminates the origins and evolution of family structures, marriage, and religion, and the profound impact these cultural transformations had on human psychology. Mapping these shifts through ancient history and late antiquity, Henrich reveals that the most fundamental institutions of kinship and marriage changed dramatically under pressure from the Roman Catholic Church.
-
-
Is weird the new normal?
- By Amazon Customer on 25-08-2023
-
The Hindu Way to Wealth
- My Private Conversations with One of India's Richest Men
- By: Byron Tully
- Narrated by: Sunny Patel
- Length: 2 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Learn how to create wealth and understand life from a spiritual perspective so that your abundance includes more than just money. The Hindu Way to Wealth reveals how to become wealthy, of course, but also how to become happy, too.
-
Envy Up, Scorn Down
- How Status Divides Us
- By: Susan T Fiske
- Narrated by: Caroline Miller
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States was founded on the principle of equal opportunity for all, and this ethos continues to inform the nation's collective identity. In reality, however, absolute equality is elusive. The gap between rich and poor has widened in recent decades, and the United States has the highest level of economic inequality of any developed country. Social class and other differences in status reverberate throughout American life, and prejudice based on another's perceived status persists among individuals and groups.
Publisher's Summary
In today's world, the leisure class has been replaced by a new elite. Highly educated and defined by cultural capital rather than income bracket, these individuals earnestly buy organic, carry NPR tote bags, and breast-feed their babies. They care about discreet, inconspicuous consumption - like eating free-range chicken and heirloom tomatoes, wearing organic cotton shirts and Toms shoes, and listening to the Serial podcast. They use their purchasing power to hire nannies and housekeepers, to cultivate their children's growth, and to practice yoga and Pilates.
In The Sum of Small Things, Elizabeth Currid-Halkett dubs this segment of society "the aspirational class" and discusses how, through deft decisions about education, health, parenting, and retirement, the aspirational class reproduces wealth and upward mobility, deepening the ever-wider class divide.