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Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in a Winner-Take-Most World
A leading organizational theorist takes us deep into the realm of humanity’s most powerful invisible force—social status—and how it shapes everything from who we trust and what we value to which ideas and innovations change the world and who gets credit for their success.
Why does an authentic Rembrandt fetch hundreds of millions while a nearly identical painting by his most talented disciple goes for a tiny fraction of that price? What makes a restaurant “hot,” a neighborhood “up-and-coming,” or a technology “the next big thing”? Why do people often choose the same seats in recurrent office meetings? Who is most likely to interrupt someone else mid-sentence? Why do big name lawyers earn so much? Why are health disparities so pronounced? And why, when someone gets a bit ahead in life, does the small advantage so often compound?
The answer to all these questions is social status—invisible hierarchies that influence every aspect of our lives, from our health to our personal relationships and careers to how we behave in social and work settings to the tastes and preferences we form. Without it, we’d be lost and paralyzed when faced with even the simplest decisions. But it comes at a steep status works as a powerful amplifier, turning small initial advantages into insurmountable leads. Inequality is baked into its core.
Through compelling examples from business, economics, literature, art, fashion, and beyond, Anointed demonstrates how status cascades through society, creating winners and losers in ways that often have little to do with merit. And how new technology offers a glimpse of a more equitable future.
Why does an authentic Rembrandt fetch hundreds of millions while a nearly identical painting by his most talented disciple goes for a tiny fraction of that price? What makes a restaurant “hot,” a neighborhood “up-and-coming,” or a technology “the next big thing”? Why do people often choose the same seats in recurrent office meetings? Who is most likely to interrupt someone else mid-sentence? Why do big name lawyers earn so much? Why are health disparities so pronounced? And why, when someone gets a bit ahead in life, does the small advantage so often compound?
The answer to all these questions is social status—invisible hierarchies that influence every aspect of our lives, from our health to our personal relationships and careers to how we behave in social and work settings to the tastes and preferences we form. Without it, we’d be lost and paralyzed when faced with even the simplest decisions. But it comes at a steep status works as a powerful amplifier, turning small initial advantages into insurmountable leads. Inequality is baked into its core.
Through compelling examples from business, economics, literature, art, fashion, and beyond, Anointed demonstrates how status cascades through society, creating winners and losers in ways that often have little to do with merit. And how new technology offers a glimpse of a more equitable future.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published September 2, 2025
41 people are currently reading
2416 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
September 7, 2025
Is it just me or there’s nothing new here? The richer just gets richer, and you elevate your social status by hanging out with those higher than you.
I was hoping for some insights on how to navigate this status-driven world but, instead, this book seems to be full of pondering thoughts and insights on how this is happening - which to me doesn’t sound like new news.
I was hoping for some insights on how to navigate this status-driven world but, instead, this book seems to be full of pondering thoughts and insights on how this is happening - which to me doesn’t sound like new news.
June 1, 2025
Review of Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in a Winner-Take-Most World
From the Lens of a Public Health Practitioner
Anointed is a thought-provoking examination of how social status dictates opportunities and outcomes in an increasingly unequal world. As a public health professional, I found myself both fascinated and frustrated by its insights—fascinated by the clear-eyed analysis of systemic privilege, and frustrated by how accurately it reflects the inequities we battle daily in healthcare access, resource distribution, and policy influence.
Emotional Impact: Recognition and Resolve
Reading this book felt like seeing our public health challenges through a new, sharper lens. The discussion of how status operates as an invisible hand shaping life outcomes resonated deeply—I kept thinking of the patients I’ve worked with whose zip codes or income levels predetermined their health trajectories long before they ever entered a clinic.
Particularly powerful were the examples of communities that have successfully disrupted these cycles of disadvantage. These stories kindled that mix of anger and hope familiar to anyone working toward health equity—anger at systems designed to exclude, and hope at the resilience of communities rewriting the rules.
Key Insights for Public Health Practice
Status as a Fundamental Determinant of Health: The book makes clear that social status functions as a foundational social determinant, influencing everything from stress levels to lifespan. This framework helps explain why piecemeal interventions often fail to address root causes.
The Myth of Meritocracy in Health Systems: Stuart’s analysis of how “anointed” groups maintain advantage mirrors how privilege operates in healthcare—from who gets research funding to whose voices are heard in policy debates.
The Need for Structural Interventions: While the book focuses broadly on social status, its implications for public health are clear: we need policies that actively dismantle status-based barriers rather than just mitigating their effects.
Constructive Criticism
While invaluable in its analysis, I found myself wishing for:
-More explicit health connections: The public health implications are clear to practitioners, but direct discussion of health outcomes would strengthen the book’s relevance to our field.
-Solutions-oriented content: The diagnosis of problems is excellent, but I craved more case studies of successful interventions—particularly community-driven efforts that have circumvented traditional status hierarchies.
Final Thoughts
Anointed is essential reading for public health professionals serious about addressing health inequities at their roots. It challenges us to look beyond surface-level disparities and confront the deeper systems that allocate health as a privilege rather than a right. While I would have appreciated more direct application to health systems, the book provides a crucial framework for understanding the social machinery behind the inequities we see every day.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5) – A sharp analysis that will change how you see health disparities.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing a free review copy. This book has already influenced how I approach community health planning and advocacy.
From the Lens of a Public Health Practitioner
Anointed is a thought-provoking examination of how social status dictates opportunities and outcomes in an increasingly unequal world. As a public health professional, I found myself both fascinated and frustrated by its insights—fascinated by the clear-eyed analysis of systemic privilege, and frustrated by how accurately it reflects the inequities we battle daily in healthcare access, resource distribution, and policy influence.
Emotional Impact: Recognition and Resolve
Reading this book felt like seeing our public health challenges through a new, sharper lens. The discussion of how status operates as an invisible hand shaping life outcomes resonated deeply—I kept thinking of the patients I’ve worked with whose zip codes or income levels predetermined their health trajectories long before they ever entered a clinic.
Particularly powerful were the examples of communities that have successfully disrupted these cycles of disadvantage. These stories kindled that mix of anger and hope familiar to anyone working toward health equity—anger at systems designed to exclude, and hope at the resilience of communities rewriting the rules.
Key Insights for Public Health Practice
Status as a Fundamental Determinant of Health: The book makes clear that social status functions as a foundational social determinant, influencing everything from stress levels to lifespan. This framework helps explain why piecemeal interventions often fail to address root causes.
The Myth of Meritocracy in Health Systems: Stuart’s analysis of how “anointed” groups maintain advantage mirrors how privilege operates in healthcare—from who gets research funding to whose voices are heard in policy debates.
The Need for Structural Interventions: While the book focuses broadly on social status, its implications for public health are clear: we need policies that actively dismantle status-based barriers rather than just mitigating their effects.
Constructive Criticism
While invaluable in its analysis, I found myself wishing for:
-More explicit health connections: The public health implications are clear to practitioners, but direct discussion of health outcomes would strengthen the book’s relevance to our field.
-Solutions-oriented content: The diagnosis of problems is excellent, but I craved more case studies of successful interventions—particularly community-driven efforts that have circumvented traditional status hierarchies.
Final Thoughts
Anointed is essential reading for public health professionals serious about addressing health inequities at their roots. It challenges us to look beyond surface-level disparities and confront the deeper systems that allocate health as a privilege rather than a right. While I would have appreciated more direct application to health systems, the book provides a crucial framework for understanding the social machinery behind the inequities we see every day.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5) – A sharp analysis that will change how you see health disparities.
Gratitude: Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing a free review copy. This book has already influenced how I approach community health planning and advocacy.
September 20, 2025
I’m obsessed with the topic of status, and this is definitely one of my new favorites, if not my favorite. Stuart does an excellent job of how status plays a role in our everyday lives, why we evolved this way, and how it plays into the Matthew Effect (the rich get richer and the poor get poorer). This is such a must read book, and it blows my mind how people aren’t more interested in this topic.
Status and how we operate subconsciously around it are the pinnacle of human irrationality, in my opinion. This book goes over numerous studies that showcase just how irrational we are. The book opens up with such a great great story about a piece of art that went from being valued in the 10s of thousands to the hundreds of millions just based on who actually painted the picture.
What I really appreciate about this book is about how it really hammers home just how much status keeps people born into poverty down, while the rich refuse to believe they have any privilege. This isn’t just isolated to the mega wealthy, either. This also goes for those in the upper middle class. In addition to refusing to acknowledge privilege, Stuart also discusses why we’re in denial of this privilege and point to these edge cases of someone coming from the bottom and working their way up.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to read this book and others like it. Go grab a copy ASAP.
Status and how we operate subconsciously around it are the pinnacle of human irrationality, in my opinion. This book goes over numerous studies that showcase just how irrational we are. The book opens up with such a great great story about a piece of art that went from being valued in the 10s of thousands to the hundreds of millions just based on who actually painted the picture.
What I really appreciate about this book is about how it really hammers home just how much status keeps people born into poverty down, while the rich refuse to believe they have any privilege. This isn’t just isolated to the mega wealthy, either. This also goes for those in the upper middle class. In addition to refusing to acknowledge privilege, Stuart also discusses why we’re in denial of this privilege and point to these edge cases of someone coming from the bottom and working their way up.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to read this book and others like it. Go grab a copy ASAP.
October 9, 2025
I kept waiting for this book to go deeper into the issue of status, however it seemed to repeat basic information over and over. It's not a surprise or new information that high- status people are more likely to be corrupt or lie to get ahead.
November 15, 2025
The premise was pretty accepted/understood and yet the book went on for a long time trying to convince you of a given. The challenge is what we do about it. That is where it should have gotten interesting. I could only read the first third of the book before jumping to final chapter to look how Toby proposed to fix the problem. Unfortunately, there were no real solutions offered. Just a short, unthoughtful, personal AI will fix everything.
September 23, 2025
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: A leading organizational theorist takes us deep into the realm of humanity’s most powerful invisible force—social status—and how it shapes everything from who we trust and what we value to which ideas and innovations change the world and who gets credit for their success.
Why does an authentic Rembrandt fetch hundreds of millions while a nearly identical painting by his most talented disciple goes for a tiny fraction of that price? What makes a restaurant “hot,” a neighborhood “up-and-coming,” or a technology “the next big thing”? Why do people often choose the same seats in recurrent office meetings? Who is most likely to interrupt someone else mid-sentence? Why do big name lawyers earn so much? Why are health disparities so pronounced? And why, when someone gets a bit ahead in life, does the small advantage so often compound?
The answer to all these questions is social status—invisible hierarchies that influence every aspect of our lives, from our health to our personal relationships and careers to how we behave in social and work settings to the tastes and preferences we form. Without it, we’d be lost and paralyzed when faced with even the simplest decisions. But it comes at a steep status works as a powerful amplifier, turning small initial advantages into insurmountable leads. Inequality is baked into its core.
Through compelling examples from business, economics, literature, art, fashion, and beyond, Anointed demonstrates how status cascades through society, creating winners and losers in ways that often have little to do with merit. And how new technology offers a glimpse of a more equitable future.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Analyzing what inequality *does* is pretty much the most important topic in the vastly-more-polarized world of 2025. Why it does those things is harder to pin down because that makes the researcher confront very touchy topics like racism, sexism, class snobbery...all very germane to the topic but also more fungible due to their seeming inevitability. In a world with slavery going on in it this exact instant yet that fact being unacknowledged, unacknowledgable in fact, how does one tease out the roots of the practice? Never mind that it goes back over five thousand years. That we're sure of.
So what's the evidence we have, mountains and mountains of it, say? That inequality exists, that it does some good things...you specifically and personally have the following choices based on your status is a good way to avoid overload when making decisions...and bad ones like "this thing you need to save your life is not available to people of your status." There are obviously many points along the continuum between those arbitrarily opposed points. The author is more careful in framing his examples than I choose to be in this review. As you'd expect.
The conferred prestige of social worth by being in some specific in-group is a golden passkey to benefits at every level of human endeavor. The author does a cracking job of putting this fact before us in blue-chip language backed by stellar research done in prestigious institutions. What does it mean is permaybehaps not always as clear. Does the author, does the data more importantly, support the common perception that this is unjust?
To whom?
There is a lot of data digested, a lot of analysis done, and at the end of the read...copiously annotated and with a very impressive bibliography...I do not have an answer to give you. There may be no answer to be found in the data.
So, my idea is: look at the data left unexamined. No one can look at everything. Do this same himalaya of work with the other stuff. This book is a terrific curiosity lighter, an excellent introduction to the study of inequality, and not an epitome or summation of it. Nor does the author present it as such. He makes no claims to resolving any debates, he presents case studies...the Rembrandt one he opens with is very trenchant indeed...he leads you through facts that illuminate the issues and then expects you'll do some work.
People who vaguely wonder "why does my boss get a reserved spot near the door?" are well-advised to get this study into their grasp. Status and prestige are very important in your daily life, it behooves you to get a handle on how and (to an extent) why they exist.
The Publisher Says: A leading organizational theorist takes us deep into the realm of humanity’s most powerful invisible force—social status—and how it shapes everything from who we trust and what we value to which ideas and innovations change the world and who gets credit for their success.
Why does an authentic Rembrandt fetch hundreds of millions while a nearly identical painting by his most talented disciple goes for a tiny fraction of that price? What makes a restaurant “hot,” a neighborhood “up-and-coming,” or a technology “the next big thing”? Why do people often choose the same seats in recurrent office meetings? Who is most likely to interrupt someone else mid-sentence? Why do big name lawyers earn so much? Why are health disparities so pronounced? And why, when someone gets a bit ahead in life, does the small advantage so often compound?
The answer to all these questions is social status—invisible hierarchies that influence every aspect of our lives, from our health to our personal relationships and careers to how we behave in social and work settings to the tastes and preferences we form. Without it, we’d be lost and paralyzed when faced with even the simplest decisions. But it comes at a steep status works as a powerful amplifier, turning small initial advantages into insurmountable leads. Inequality is baked into its core.
Through compelling examples from business, economics, literature, art, fashion, and beyond, Anointed demonstrates how status cascades through society, creating winners and losers in ways that often have little to do with merit. And how new technology offers a glimpse of a more equitable future.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Analyzing what inequality *does* is pretty much the most important topic in the vastly-more-polarized world of 2025. Why it does those things is harder to pin down because that makes the researcher confront very touchy topics like racism, sexism, class snobbery...all very germane to the topic but also more fungible due to their seeming inevitability. In a world with slavery going on in it this exact instant yet that fact being unacknowledged, unacknowledgable in fact, how does one tease out the roots of the practice? Never mind that it goes back over five thousand years. That we're sure of.
So what's the evidence we have, mountains and mountains of it, say? That inequality exists, that it does some good things...you specifically and personally have the following choices based on your status is a good way to avoid overload when making decisions...and bad ones like "this thing you need to save your life is not available to people of your status." There are obviously many points along the continuum between those arbitrarily opposed points. The author is more careful in framing his examples than I choose to be in this review. As you'd expect.
The conferred prestige of social worth by being in some specific in-group is a golden passkey to benefits at every level of human endeavor. The author does a cracking job of putting this fact before us in blue-chip language backed by stellar research done in prestigious institutions. What does it mean is permaybehaps not always as clear. Does the author, does the data more importantly, support the common perception that this is unjust?
To whom?
There is a lot of data digested, a lot of analysis done, and at the end of the read...copiously annotated and with a very impressive bibliography...I do not have an answer to give you. There may be no answer to be found in the data.
So, my idea is: look at the data left unexamined. No one can look at everything. Do this same himalaya of work with the other stuff. This book is a terrific curiosity lighter, an excellent introduction to the study of inequality, and not an epitome or summation of it. Nor does the author present it as such. He makes no claims to resolving any debates, he presents case studies...the Rembrandt one he opens with is very trenchant indeed...he leads you through facts that illuminate the issues and then expects you'll do some work.
People who vaguely wonder "why does my boss get a reserved spot near the door?" are well-advised to get this study into their grasp. Status and prestige are very important in your daily life, it behooves you to get a handle on how and (to an extent) why they exist.
May 6, 2025
Toby Stuart's book is interesting, informative, and filled with excellent examples. I highlighted something in almost every chapter. I learned a ton, but more importantly the book made me think. Anointed explains how individuals and organizations gain, hold on to, and use their social status. The book starts with the power of the anointed, there are acts that give people the power, for example a chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States swearing in a new president. Once you have been anointed, you have creditability. The title you hold explains to people why your opinions or actions should be valued. When you leave the job, you might lose that creditability. It also works the other way; people can lend their credibility to organizations.
Anointed people also help us sift through all of the information and decisions we are faced with daily. We trust people that are anointed to guide us, because we cannot possibly make all the decisions we make in a day. We may trust publicly recognized investors to explain the value of new companies or inventions. We may not understand the intrinsic value, but we understand that someone who is anointed believes this is a good investment. We also trust the awards that the invention one. This positive attention brings more investors, and the invention becomes a bigger deal. It also works the other way; inventions that can't gain as much traction don't get more attention and struggle to grow.
Dr. Stuart balances the benefits of anointed with the challenges and how it promotes inequality. He provides examples of both. Ella Fitzgerald struggled to land a gig in LA's famous nightclub, but the Marylin Monroe said she would sit in the front row for two weeks if the owner gave Fitzgerald a chance. Monroe lent her credibility to Fitzgerald. He also talks about how anointed people can be isolated and unsure of which relationships are real because of the benefits that others get from being with anointed people. But even the lonely people at the top are often better than the un-anointed people struggling at the bottom Everyone wants to be better than someone else. Finally, he talks about how people have cheated the anointed system throughout history. There is a clear benefit to be anointed, and people will lie and cheat to gain this status and the benefits that come from it.
Throughout the book, I found myself thinking about my life. The times I left a job and my status fell because I no longer had the title anymore. Building my own company and knowing that this time my experience brought credibility to my new business. The idea that once I did a few projects they would speak for themselves and the value my clients bring to my work. Plus a little imposture syndrome we all struggle with and the curated experience I create on LinkedIn to promote my work. Love books that explain why things are the way they are and make me think and this book did.
Anointed people also help us sift through all of the information and decisions we are faced with daily. We trust people that are anointed to guide us, because we cannot possibly make all the decisions we make in a day. We may trust publicly recognized investors to explain the value of new companies or inventions. We may not understand the intrinsic value, but we understand that someone who is anointed believes this is a good investment. We also trust the awards that the invention one. This positive attention brings more investors, and the invention becomes a bigger deal. It also works the other way; inventions that can't gain as much traction don't get more attention and struggle to grow.
Dr. Stuart balances the benefits of anointed with the challenges and how it promotes inequality. He provides examples of both. Ella Fitzgerald struggled to land a gig in LA's famous nightclub, but the Marylin Monroe said she would sit in the front row for two weeks if the owner gave Fitzgerald a chance. Monroe lent her credibility to Fitzgerald. He also talks about how anointed people can be isolated and unsure of which relationships are real because of the benefits that others get from being with anointed people. But even the lonely people at the top are often better than the un-anointed people struggling at the bottom Everyone wants to be better than someone else. Finally, he talks about how people have cheated the anointed system throughout history. There is a clear benefit to be anointed, and people will lie and cheat to gain this status and the benefits that come from it.
Throughout the book, I found myself thinking about my life. The times I left a job and my status fell because I no longer had the title anymore. Building my own company and knowing that this time my experience brought credibility to my new business. The idea that once I did a few projects they would speak for themselves and the value my clients bring to my work. Plus a little imposture syndrome we all struggle with and the curated experience I create on LinkedIn to promote my work. Love books that explain why things are the way they are and make me think and this book did.
December 5, 2025
Stellar book. Extraordinarily fascinating. I wouldn't say that this book is mind blowing in the sense that as Stuart presents anything entirely shocking. Yet the summation of the thought and the emphasis on the effects of status when taken together paint a pretty remarkable picture. No, it won't surprise anyone that those who have power and influence are the most likely to accumulate more power and influence. It's instead riveting to see how this ultimately lays bare how ingrained this pattern is in the modern culture despite the fantasy-like belief in the world being a meritocracy. The world is full of people who believe that "If I truly work hard enough, I'll be able to get what I deserve." Yet there is absolutely no guarantee of this.
Several years ago, H and I went to Hank's in Austin for brunch on the weekend. This east-Austin restaurant was often popular, but this particular day was unlike any other. What was going on? An influencer had made a post regarding their lemon ricotta pancakes that had gone viral, so it appeared everyone in Austin needed to head there. Nothing had changed about Hank's or the brunch options; this had been an offering long before the post was made. Yet the attributed status and anointing by someone who already had status led to an explosion in popularity and a longer wait time for my own experience.
We see an example of status being imparted here, and this is my greatest takeaway. If you have status, the most helpful thing you can often do is impart this status to others, freely handing it out to empower those who do not have status. It's worth stating that this is exactly what we see Jesus do which is even more shocking considering He is God Himself giving status to people once considered His enemies. Wild.
Great read. Tore through it in just a few days. Definitely one of my favorites of the year.
Several years ago, H and I went to Hank's in Austin for brunch on the weekend. This east-Austin restaurant was often popular, but this particular day was unlike any other. What was going on? An influencer had made a post regarding their lemon ricotta pancakes that had gone viral, so it appeared everyone in Austin needed to head there. Nothing had changed about Hank's or the brunch options; this had been an offering long before the post was made. Yet the attributed status and anointing by someone who already had status led to an explosion in popularity and a longer wait time for my own experience.
We see an example of status being imparted here, and this is my greatest takeaway. If you have status, the most helpful thing you can often do is impart this status to others, freely handing it out to empower those who do not have status. It's worth stating that this is exactly what we see Jesus do which is even more shocking considering He is God Himself giving status to people once considered His enemies. Wild.
Great read. Tore through it in just a few days. Definitely one of my favorites of the year.
October 29, 2025
I thought this was a pretty good book, brilliant in parts, though somewhat lacking in others. The theme wasn't particularly strong in the beginning nor final chapter, but in the middle chapters I thought it was really good and I was sold on the anointment hypothesis.
The final chapter with AI and algorithms wasn't that well thought through I believe. Perhaps because I spend so much time in that space, I have am wary of the dangers of algorithms and AI, and how they very easily and insidiously introduce bias and prejudice. I was expecting him to touch on this a bit more, but this danger was mentioned very fleetingly and in such a way that it seemed as if it was a solved problem rather than one that knows no good solution.
Overall I thought the ideas of how we are influenced through heuristics, "status effects" that flow from one entity to another, made sense. Because we can't be thinking through a million different options all the time, we take mental shortcuts, in the form of direct or indirect recommendations of people or organisations.
In the future though, as the author so rightly put it, the "anointers" are likely going to be forms of AI, recommending us on one thing or another. And because we don't quite understand how it works and all its possible implications often only after the harm's been done, this could lead to unforeseen dangers, especially because many people believe "algorithms" should be more objective given their lack of human prejudices and biases, not quite understanding that these prejudices and biases could well show up in perpetuity because they were trained on data that was itself prejudiced and biased due to how we've (us humans) behaved in the past.
The final chapter with AI and algorithms wasn't that well thought through I believe. Perhaps because I spend so much time in that space, I have am wary of the dangers of algorithms and AI, and how they very easily and insidiously introduce bias and prejudice. I was expecting him to touch on this a bit more, but this danger was mentioned very fleetingly and in such a way that it seemed as if it was a solved problem rather than one that knows no good solution.
Overall I thought the ideas of how we are influenced through heuristics, "status effects" that flow from one entity to another, made sense. Because we can't be thinking through a million different options all the time, we take mental shortcuts, in the form of direct or indirect recommendations of people or organisations.
In the future though, as the author so rightly put it, the "anointers" are likely going to be forms of AI, recommending us on one thing or another. And because we don't quite understand how it works and all its possible implications often only after the harm's been done, this could lead to unforeseen dangers, especially because many people believe "algorithms" should be more objective given their lack of human prejudices and biases, not quite understanding that these prejudices and biases could well show up in perpetuity because they were trained on data that was itself prejudiced and biased due to how we've (us humans) behaved in the past.
August 30, 2025
The Anointed by Toby Stuart is a truly interesting deep dive into the system that props up some people and seemingly keeps others trapped on the bottom of the totem pole. The book opens with why such a system developed in the human psyche and how in some ways, it’s a very useful system to prevent choice overwhelm. The book then turns to evaluate the myriad of ways this system is both beneficial and maladaptive. It takes a close look at the pros and cons of being one of the systems anointed ones as well as what it looks like with someone who’s risen to the top has a sudden fall from grace. It’s complete with case studies and analysis of recent real life examples.
Truly a very fascinating deep dive into people with the Midas touch. Thoroughly recommend if you enjoy understanding the motivations that drive humanity.
I would like to thank Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Truly a very fascinating deep dive into people with the Midas touch. Thoroughly recommend if you enjoy understanding the motivations that drive humanity.
I would like to thank Simon and Schuster and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
August 27, 2025
I was provided with a copy of this book by the publisher through a LibraryThing giveaway in exchange for my honest review.
A very interesting topic - essentially inequality brought about by past reputation or characteristics - done on a very shallow level. Much of what's here will not be surprising to anyone with a remote familiarity with the topic of inequality. An excellent jumping-off point at an introductory level, however. A very good bibliography provides fodder for further exploration of the topic, and the ideas explored in the book are attention-grabbing enough to interest one in following up. One quibble is that Stuart seems to waver on whether the whole thing is good for society or not. He believes in leadership structured in a highly vertical manner, clearly, but is more squishy on inequality based on race/gender/etc. As one would hope!
A very interesting topic - essentially inequality brought about by past reputation or characteristics - done on a very shallow level. Much of what's here will not be surprising to anyone with a remote familiarity with the topic of inequality. An excellent jumping-off point at an introductory level, however. A very good bibliography provides fodder for further exploration of the topic, and the ideas explored in the book are attention-grabbing enough to interest one in following up. One quibble is that Stuart seems to waver on whether the whole thing is good for society or not. He believes in leadership structured in a highly vertical manner, clearly, but is more squishy on inequality based on race/gender/etc. As one would hope!
October 17, 2025
I had my first eye-opening observations about the mechanisms of anointment during my experience in the contemporary art sector a decade ago. There’s probably no field like art, where the creator’s name matters more than the work itself, which creates distortion fields both fascinating and truly frustrating to observe. But the truth is that the same mechanisms are at play in most human affairs, although certainly to varying degrees. This book by Prof. Stuart puts all the pieces together, creating a crystal-clear conceptual framework to become more aware of the forces that influence what and who we celebrate, and possibly start changing things from our own little corner.
September 30, 2025
This book digs into the unsettling truth about social status: how it shapes trust, opportunity, and even the way we value things. I went in disliking status and came out hating it even more. The author shows how hierarchies can sometimes reduce conflict, but at what cost? Trust based on position rather than character feels deeply unfair, and the fact that resources always flow upward made me bristle. Thought-provoking, frustrating, and important.
September 9, 2025
Excellent, thoughtful book. While accessible, it gives you a lot to think about the role, impact, nature and, possibly, the necessity of status in our society. After reading the book, you are in a better position to have a more complete and valid discussion about how to make our society more fair, credible and inclusive.
December 14, 2025
The problem with this book is that it's only telling us - what we already know. That the rich, famous and respected get ahead and the rest just follow.
There is nothing about what this come from, or how to change it. Nothing. So if you want page after page talking about what could have been said in a few paragraphs, this book is for you. Otherwise move on, there's nothing new to see here.
Book summary: The elite and the anointed rule the world. And that, the author thinks, is a good thing. The rest of us should follow and be happy as slaves to conventions and hiearchy.
There is nothing about what this come from, or how to change it. Nothing. So if you want page after page talking about what could have been said in a few paragraphs, this book is for you. Otherwise move on, there's nothing new to see here.
Book summary: The elite and the anointed rule the world. And that, the author thinks, is a good thing. The rest of us should follow and be happy as slaves to conventions and hiearchy.
October 6, 2025
Unsurprisingly, those with privilege get more privilege.
But there were interesting new aspects — including a discussion of how AI can level the privileged playing field a bit, which I hadn’t thought of!
But there were interesting new aspects — including a discussion of how AI can level the privileged playing field a bit, which I hadn’t thought of!
September 17, 2025
A good idea, but more dogma than real examination.
October 7, 2025
the next step
Most of the book covers what is already known. The interesting bit is how AI could change access to opportunities for the un anointed.
Most of the book covers what is already known. The interesting bit is how AI could change access to opportunities for the un anointed.
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