Snobbery: The American Version [Paperback]

Such is Epstein's book. It's a great read. It's original, provocative and insightful. The author has thought long and hard about the subject, and there is much here that is new. Though the author is a college lecturer, there is thankfully nothing that is remotely academic about his writing. Rather, Epstein's approach and style shares much in common with the conversational informality of Montaigne.

To clear up a few misconceptions perpetrated by other reviewers:

1) Epstein is most emphatically not a snob. Rather, he is admirably honest about areas where he inclines to what may be regarded as a snobbish outlook, whereas genuine snobs generally lack this sort of self-insight.

2) This book is by no means "light-reading." While it is witty and compulsively readable, many of its insights are profound and will get you thinking about ways in which snobbery has infiltrated your own thinking.

3) "Snobbery," the way Epstein regards it, is by no means a synonym for "elitism," and the book is mercifully free of politically correct cant that would equate the two.

All in all, Epstein IS an elitist in the sense that he has the sense and discrimination to accurately gauge relative value in cultural matters, but he is far too honest to be considered a snob.

Basically, Epstein takes a slightly satirical look at how the American Snob has evolved. Written from a qausi-insider perspectvie (Epstein playfully admits to fitting a number of his snob categories) the book gives us a look at how snobbism has affected our cultural history as Americans, and assures us that the snob is alive and well today in america.

Over all this is a fine intellectual read. Epstein's dry senes of humor keeps the book from being dry, and his "insiders perspective" makes the satire work even better.

He also does a wonderful job of showing how the basis for snobbery has changed, from WASPs and elitism based on real but arbitrary standards like the name of the school you attended, or your connections to established families --- to the modern world, warped by the arbitrary winds of fashionable status, the "hotness" of market driven mania.

Still, as a reviewer of great excellence, I must say that his discussion of his attempts to overcome a life of looking down on people and to enter the "snob free zone" limps along -- does he really want us to believe that such a place exists? Who would want to go there?

So read this book if you want penetrating insights, sound social commentary, and great amusement. If those are the kinds of things that a person like YOU finds interesting. I might even have given him 5 stars, but of course, I reserve such an award for true merit, of which I am the sole judge.