<
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/21/kim-phillips-fein-country-of-lords>
"The historian Kim Phillips-Fein’s new book is published amid celebrations of
the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence and its truth
“self-evident, that all men are created equal”. Country of Lords, however, is a
history of Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long
Fight
Against Equality in America.
Concise and hard-hitting, the book arrives at a time of glaring social and
economic inequality, Phillips-Fein seeing Elon Musk “emerging as a trillionaire
very much on people’s minds, with a deep level of discomfort, both fear and
anger about what this portends”.
“It’s always hard to know what’s going to be happening when you have written a
book,” she said. “But I think those questions about economic equality and the
impact of extreme levels of economic hierarchy and concentration, and the
questions, ‘Can you still have a democracy any longer? What are the ways that
you can counter that? What alternate visions are there if you want to live in a
world that’s not characterized that way?’, are present.”
Phillips-Fein studies conservatism and “questions about capitalism and
democracy”. Her first book,
Invisible Hands, was a study of businessmen who
fought the New Deal of the 1930s. Her second,
Fear City, about the New York
economic crisis of the 1970s, was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize. Hers is a
major voice. It’s also unique. Not many books start with founder John Adams and
end with Peter Thiel of Palantir, Musk’s fellow techno-fascist. Might such
company seem unfair on Adams, the Boston lawyer who was part of a great
revolution but feared what was unleashed?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
