Beattie, Ann, Park City: New and Selected Stories
Benson, E. F, Alcibiades
Berners, Gerald, First Childhood
Bourdieu, Pierre, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste
Braudy, Leo, The Frenzy of Renown
Brookhiser, Richard, The Way of the Wasp
Brooks, David, Bobos in Paradise
Cannadine, David, The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain
Castiglione, Baldassare, The Book of the Courtier
Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope, The Letters of Lord Chesterfield
Cowen, Tyler, What Price Fame?
Cramer, Richard Ben, Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life
Diesbach, Ghislain de, The Secrets of Gotha
Dickens, Charles, Martin Chuzzlewit, David Copperfield, etc.
Dreiser, Theodore, Sister Carrie, Jenny Gerhardt, An American Tragedy, etc.
Dunne, Dominick, The Way We Lived Then
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, Tender Is the Night, The Great Gatsby, etc.
Frank, Robert H., Luxury Fever
Fraser, Kennedy, The Fashionable Mind and Scenes from the Fashionable World
Fussell, Paul, Abroad
Gold, Arthur, and Robert Fizdale, Misia
Goldstein, Rebecca, The Mind-Body Problem
Griffin, Jasper (ed.), The Art of Snobbery
Haskell, Francis, Taste and the Antique
James, Henry, The Princess Casamassima, The Portrait of a Lady, Hawthorne, etc.
Kaplan, Alice, French Lessons
Lemann, Nicholas, The Big Test
Liebling, A. J., Between Meals
MacShane, Frank, The Life of John O’Hara
McDowell, Colin (ed.), Fashion
Mugglestone, Lynda, Talking Proper
Nisbet, Robert, Tradition
O’Hara, John, Appointment in Samarra, Ten North Frederick, Collected Stories
Packard, Vance, The Status Seekers
Perry, Thomas Sergeant, The Evolution of the Snob
Post, Emily, Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home
Powell, Anthony, Dance to the Music of Time
Proust, Marcel, Remembrance of Things Past
Reitlinger, Gerald, The Economics of Taste
Richardson, John, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Rollyson, Carl, and Lisa Paddock, Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon
Rorem, Ned, Lies
Saint-Simon, Due de, Historical Memoirs, 1691–1715
Santayana, George, Soliloquies in England
Seabrook, John, Nobrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of Culture
Sebastian, Mihail, Journal, 1935–1944
Shklar, Judith, Ordinary Vices
Singer, Irving, George Santayana: Literary Philosopher
Thackeray, William Makepeace, The Book of Snobs, Vanity Fair
Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America
Trollope, Frances, Domestic Manners of the Americans
Turner, James, The Liberal Education of Charles Eliot Norton
Vaill, Amanda, Everybody Was So Young
Veblen, Thorstein, The Theory of the Leisure Class
Warhol, Andy, The Andy Warhol Diaries
Waugh, Evelyn, Handful of Dust, The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, The Letters of Evelyn Waugh, etc.
Wecter, Dixon, The Saga of Society
Weiss, Michael J., The Clustered World
Wharton, Edith, A Backward Glance, The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, etc.
Ziegler, Philip, Diana Cooper
Index
Abercrombie & Fitch, 107–8
Abroad (Fussell), 213
academic affiliation, 55, 144. See also educational snobbery; intellectual snobbery
achievement, status conferred by, 5, 21. See also ambition
Adams, Abigail, 67
Adams, Henry, 31, 49
Adams, John, 30, 49, 119–20
addresses, elite, 110–12
advertising, via possessions, 92
agape, 250
Agins, Teri, 174, 179–80
Albee, Edward, 44
alcohol consumption, and class identity, 224
Alsop, Joseph, 54, 160
ambition, 45–47
American manners/mores, European criticisms of, 35–36
Americans, sense of inferiority, 204
Amis, Kingsley, 65–66, 219–20
Amis, Martin, 205, 218, 233
ancestry, distinguished, 124–25
irrelevance of, 51–52
status conferred by, 21
Andersen Consulting, 44
Andersen, Kurt, 108, 118, 236–37
Anglophilia, 207
manifestations of, 209–11
power of, in America, 208
anti-abortion activists, as virtu- crats, 157
anti-black racism, among Wasps, 56
anti-Semitism, 7, 164–65
among Wasps, 56
expectations of, 166
at Ivy League colleges, 129
Virginia Woolf’s, 15
antisocial behavior, snobbery as, 17
Antonioni, Michelangelo, 232
appearance, 242. See also fashion, fashionableness
Arendt, Hannah, 148
Arguing the World (film), 145
aristocracy, European
deference paid to, 47–48
destruction of, during 20th century, 48
aristocratic pretensions, 30
Armani, Giorgio, 180, 181
Armies of the Night, The (Mailer), 150–51
Armour family, 52
arriviste, 14
art, acquisition of, 24
artistic snobbery, 8–9
artists
changing popularity of through the ages, 75
enduring prestige of, 44–45
snobbery of, 26
Atheneum (London), 134
athletes, as celebrities, 196
Auden, W. H., 65, 165, 208, 250
Augusta National Golf Club, 134
avant-garde, vs. fashion, 178
Backward Glance, A (Wharton), 49
bad taste, 76
Bakker, Jim, 39
Balanchine, George, 87
Baltzell, E. Digby, 55–56
Balzac, Honoré de, 24, 77, 110, 176
Banks, John, 103
Barker, Pat, 206
Barr, Roseanne, 235
Barrymore, Ethel, 121
Baryshnikov, Mikhail, 87
Beatles, The, 66
Beattie, Ann, 219, 221–22
beauty, 75–76. See also fashion, fashionableness; taste
Beebe, Lucius, 53, 216
behavior. See manners
Bell, Alexander Graham, 41
Bell, Vanessa, 148
Belloc, Hilaire, 248
Bellow, Saul, 44, 196
Bennett, Alan, 186, 196
Benson, E. F., 103–4
Bentley (car), 16, 110
Berenson, Bernard, 208, 209
Berlin, Isaiah, 15
Berry, Walter, 88
Betts, Henry, 140
Between Meals (Liebling), 216
Bibesco, Elisabeth, 165
Bibescu, Antoine, 231
Bible, 28
Big Test, The (Lemann), 59
Billy Budd (Melville), 24
Biographer’s Moustache, The (Amis), 219–20
Black Angus, The (Chicago), 21
blacks
admission to elitist educational institutions, 125–26
exclusion from Wasp ascendancy, 55
as victim group, 155
Block, Valerie, 40
Bloom, Allan, 104
Bloomsbury writers/artists, 148
Blow, Isavella, 181
BMW cars, 15
Boboism, 70
Bobos in Paradise (Brooks), 70
body shape, and status, 95
Bogart, Humphrey, 11
Book of Snobs (Thackeray), 28
Book of t
he Courtier (Castiglione), 78–79
Boorstin, Daniel, 194
Boston Brahmins, 49
Boulez, Pierre, 87
Bourdieu, Pierre, 73, 145
Brahmins (Boston), 49
Braudy, Leo, 198
Brazil, 74
Breakfast Club, The (radio show), 5
breast surgery, 74
Brodkey, Harold, 174, 201
Brokaw, Tom, 196
Brookhiser, Richard, 58
Brooks Brothers, 57
Brooks, David, 69–70, 116, 179
Brooks, Mel, 169
Brown, Tina, 233–35
Brown University, 129–30
Buckley, William F., Jr., 93, 113
Burberry raincoat, 173
Burr, Aaron, 30, 49
Bush, Barbara Pierce, 57
Bush, George H. W., 55, 57, 124–25
Bush, George W., 55–56
business school graduates, 44
Buder, Brett, 162
C-Span, 197
Cadillac (car)
looking down on, 10, 15
as status symbol, 4
Café Society, 53
Camp, 76. See also fashion, fashionableness
Cannadine, David, 71
Capote, Truman, 167–68, 182
careers, as status symbols, 119
Carleton College, 130
Carlyle, Thomas, on prestige, 96
cars, 10
as status symbols, 15, 92–93, 109–10
Carter, Jimmy, 55
Cassini, Oleg, 180
Castellane, Boni de, 48
Castiglione, Baldassare, 78–79
Catcher in the Rye, The (Salinger), 105
Catholic Church, declining prestige of, 41
Catholics, 7
admission to elitist educational institutions, 125
social exclusion of, 54, 190
Caulfield, Holden, 105
Cavafy, C. P., 146–47
celebrity(ies)
appreciation of attention by, 198
changing social status of, 195–96
definitions of, 194–95
excitement generated by, 197–98
hangers-on/groupies and, 199
in Hollywood, 190–92
honorary degrees given to, 27
prestige of, 5, 45
and public recognition, 196–97
Snobbery among, 201
sources of, 195
wealth and, 200
with-it-ness of, 229
Century Club (New York City), 135–36
Channon, Chips, 23
character, and class, 65
chefs, status of, 220–21
Chesterfield, Lord, 18
Chicago, sources of status in, 21
Child, Julia, 217
children
pressures on, to perform, 126–28
prestige conferred by, 115–20
chiropractors, 38
Christian love, 250
Churchill, Randolph, 209–10
Churchill, Winston, 65, 201
class, defined, 72
class distinctions
in democracies, 33
Marx’s view of, 63–64
and status, 92
class hatred, 63
class struggle, 66
class system, American
changes in, since 1960s, 66–67
college and, 69, 121–22
components of, 64
difficulty defining, 67–68
fluid nature of, 62–64
classicism, movement away from, 78
clergy, declining social prestige of, 40–41
Clinton, Bill, 55
clothing, and fashion, 173–75
clothing designers, 170, 179–80
“Clothing of the American Mind” (Brooks), 179
clubs
colleges as, 133
country clubs, 137
ethnic groups as, 137
exclusionary nature of, 135–38
in high school, 5–6
Jewish, 136–37
as status symbols, 133–36
Clustered, World, A (Weiss), 71
clusters, 71
Cochrane, Johnnie, 40
Cocteau, Jean, 80, 164
college education, 4
best and hot colleges, 12, 127, 129–30
importance of, 126–28
and intellectual snobbery, 143, 145, 146
and social class, 69, 121–22
societal purpose of, 122–23
comfort food, 220
condescension, 247
need for, 249
and political snobbery, 160–61
Congress, prestige of, 97
connections, status conferred by, 21. See also celebrity(ies); name-dropping
Connolly, Cyril, 188
conservatives, as virtucrats, 157
consulting, current prestige of, 44
content providers, 44
cooking, American, 216–17
Cooper, Diana, 80
Cooper, Jilly, 66, 69–70
Coppola, Edith, 188–89
correct opinion, 9–10
Corrupt Coterie, 80
country clubs, 136. See also clubs
Cousin Pons (Balzac), 24
Covenant Club (Chicago), 136–37, 138
Coward, Noël, 87
Cowen, Tyler, 200
Cowling, Sam, 5
Craft, Robert, 188
Cramer, Richard Ben, 199
Cronkite, Walter, 200
culinary snobbery, 215–20
cultural snobbery, 9, 147, 244–45
Eurocentrism of, 148–51
Custom of the Country, The (Wharton), 51
Dangerfield, Rodney, 22
Dante, 28
Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), 30
decadence, and culinary snobbery, 219–20
deference
earned vs. unearned, 22
as goal of snob, 20–21
prestige and, 99
public recognition and, 21
and social hierarchy, 22
toward aristocracy, 47–48
See also celebrity(ies)
democracy
flourishing of snobbery in, 28
honor/reputation as basis for status, 30
need to invent class distinctions, 33
presumed equality within, 30
Democracy (Adams), 31
Democracy in America (Tocqueville), 29, 31
Democratic Party, 156
dentists, 38
deprivation, as basis of social class, 67
Dershowitz, Alan, 40
Diana, Princess of Wales, 35, 49
Dickens, Charles, 35–36
differences, social, elevation of, 56–57
DiMaggio, Joe, 199–200
Dior, Christian, 179
Disraeli, Benjamin, 164–65
Doctorow, E. L., 44
dogs, as status symbols, 113
Domestic Manners of the Americans (Trollope), 35–36
Donoghue, Denis, 131
dot-coms, 46
downward-looking snobbery, 4, 15–16, 20, 23–24, 32
exclusion as, 136–38
downward mobility, 119. See also reverse snobbery
Dreiser, Theodore, 29, 218
Dreyfus, Alfred, 164
Dukakis, Michael, 57
Dunne, Dominick, 170, 189–92
Dunne, John Gregory, 189
earning power, and prestige, 39. See also wealth, financial attainment
East Side (Manhattan), 111
economic prosperity
and changes in class distinctions, 67
and the decline of Wasp prestige, 60–61
Economics of Taste (Reitlinger), 75
Edison, Thomas, 41
educational snobbery, 4, 69
effects of GI Bill on, 125–26
effects of SAT on, 126–27
elitist institutions, 124–25
&nb
sp; and intellectual snobbery, 144
payoffs of, 129
reverse snobbery, 131
role of college education, 121–24
top colleges, 127–28
Eliot, T. S., 37, 123, 186, 187, 205
elitists
vs. snobs, 27
Wasps as, 59
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 176
End of Innocence, The (Wharton), 51
engineers, declining prestige of, 41–42
English
pro-American sentiments among, 231–34
snobbery among, 206–7
English accent, power of, 209–10
English language, as status symbol, 207
entrepreneurs, prestige of, 43–44
environmentalists, prestige of, 43
envy
expressing, in a democracy, 29
social climbing as, 33–34
and upward-looking snobbery, 24
Ephron, Nora, 118
Episcopal Church, association of Wasps with, 55
Epstein, Jason, 111, 144
Establishment, the, 56
ethnic groups
ethnocentric snobbery, 56–57
intragroup distinctions, 137
etiquette. See manners/etiquette
Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and. at Home (Post), 79
European culture, adulation of, 204, 205, 209, 213–14
and wine connoisseurship, 225
Evanston, Illinois, 112
Eve’s Apple (Rosen), 40
excellence, delight in, vs. snobbery, 26–27
exclusivity
anti-immigrant sentiments and, 9, 54
of club membership, 136–38
Snobbery Page 27