Product Description

Although the basic facts about wealth inequality are no longer a mystery, we still know very little about who the wealthy are, how they got there, and what prevents other people from becoming rich. That is, we know very little about the process of wealth mobility. This book investigates some of the most basic questions about wealth mobility. The advantages of owning wealth and the elusive nature of true wealth have long made questions about the wealthy broadly appealing. In recent years, that interest has been amplified by dramatic economic changes and rising wealth inequality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1212161 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
“This book constitutes a major contribution to the field of household wealth and wealth mobility. It is filled with new and intriguing findings on what it takes to become rich in America. Well written and accessible, it should appeal to a wide audience both in the United States and abroad.” -- Edward Wolff, New York University

“Lisa Keister has produced a magnificently comprehensive examination of wealth attainment and mobility in the contemporary United States, including historical comparisons to the wealth processes in the early twentieth century. She attends to critical issues of how ethnicity, religion, and gender influence wealth attainment and mobility, and she assesses theories of wealth attainment and mobility using several high quality data sources. Keister's work on the accumulation of fortunes provides a lucid and provocative compliment to Williams Julius Wilson's The Truly Disadvantaged.” -- Darren E. Sherkat, Southern Illinois University

About the Author
Lisa A. Keister is associate professor of sociology at the Ohio State University and is the recipient of the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Development Career Award. She is the author of Wealth in America (Cambridge, 2000).

Customer Reviews

An important issue well analyzed
The person who ranked this a "1" obviously was looking for a "self-help" or "how to" book which this is not. It IS an excellent analysis of how America's new rich got that way--exactly what the subtitle says. The author's conclusions show that there is some--but not a lot--of wealth mobility in America (but enough to justify her research on the topic which otherwise would merely conclude that wealth is overwhelmingly inherited) and that educational attainment and religion (perhaps to the extent that a education is fundamentally valued by a religious group) are important factors in "getting rich." The book avoids the trap of conclusion by anecdote (e.g., Well, Bill Gates dropped out of college, so education must not matter) by examining the FACTS across all of American society. This is the book for you if you want to know who in America succeeds in getting rich and why. If you want "snake-oil" get-rich-quick "secrets," look elsewhere.

$70!
The only one getting richer from this book is the author!! Put the money in a mutual fund!