Fortunes of change

"Reading Fortunes of Change is like finding the missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle. Sweeping economic changes are profoundly reshaping our politics-and not in ways we usually think. These shifts are reshaping our politics-and not in ways we usually think. These shifts are reshaping the beliefs of the upper class and creating a new and very potent political force-the liberal wealth elite. Callahan's must-read book provides a whole new perspective on our economy and political culture."--Richard Florida, author of the Rise of the Creative Class. "David Callahan delivers an eye-opening and deeply informed examination of a trend he spotted first: how the rise of wealth based on intellectual firepower is challenging the narrow-minded antagonisms fostered by the old economy's industrial oligarchs and creating a broader, richer democracy. Fortunes of Change breaks new ground and should be read by anyone who wants to understand America's changing political landscape."--David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Perfectly Legal and Free Lunch. In Fortunes of Change, David Callahan contends that something big is happening among the rich in America: they're drifting to the left. In Fortunes of Change, we meet an upper class increasingly filled with super-educated professionals and entrepreneurs who work in "knowledge" industries and live in the bluest parts of America. This cosmopolitan elite takes for granted such key liberal ideas as multiculturalism and active government, and have ever less in common with an extremist GOP based in small-town America and dominated by Tea Party activists and the likes of Sarah Palin. With groundbreaking research and profiles of key wealthy liberals, Callahan explains why the ranks of the liberal rich will keep growing, thanks to ongoing changes in the economy and the liberalism of elite educational institutions, and why this group will become ever more powerful. In the process, he busts myths, slays sacred cows, and topples the conventional wisdom about who really runs America and what they think. Fortunes of Change will cause heated debate as many Republicans find their biases confirmed and debate how to recapture an upper class that used to side squarely with the GOP. Liberal activists will read the book with excitement, but also apprehension, as they grapple with new allies who may care more about polar bears than janitors, or more about legalizing gay marriage than controlling CEO pay. Packed with surprising facts and behind the scene stories, Fortunes of Change is a must-read book if you want to understand how America's politics and culture are changing-and what the future may hold. --Book Jacket.