The world is ruled by an elite class , the superclass consisting in roughly six- thousand people, overwhelmingly male. This Superclass includes not only the Big Business elite, but heads of State, and even religious leaders like the Pope, and crime - bosses. These people, the one in a million who influence many millions are part of a global structure in which they trade and deal with each other.
They are the few who influence the many.
Rothkopf takes a tour around the world with them, speaks privately and interviews many. He goes to their famous meeting grounds, perhaps most famously, Davos and learns how they operate with global and not national concerns in mine.
In the course of the exploration Rothkopf provides a great deal of information, and insight. He provides portraits of figures most of us have never heard anything about, no matter how powerful they be.
All this is fine, but my sense is the central thesis is somewhat exaggerated and mistaken. Another world- affairs analyst Fred Kagan has recently written about how old national rivalries are as alive as ever, how competition between states still rules the world. The picture of these Davos people does not exactly expunge that of the Chinese now staging their grand show in Beijing. Old- style nationalism and national pride is helping drive them to leadership in the world. There are forces at work in history beyond those which Rothkopf attributes as being in the hands of elite.
One can learn much from this book, but it only tells a small part of the whole story of how the world moves and decides.