The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide

Rating:
Summary: A well researched book of comic sociology about the Rich
Review: Conniff, in writing this light, well researched book of comic sociology, makes interesting links between his observations in the natural world for National Geographic and his observations of the rich while working for Architectural Digest. Although I think Conniff, on balance, focuses more on the rich than on the parallels between the animal kingdom and the richs' behavior, this isn't a big flaw, at least to me -- I'd rather know a little more about billionaires' lives than a little more about the sex lives of the bonobos. Overall, I'd recommend this book.

Throughout the book, Conniff traces the behaviour of the rich and of various animal species, he shows that territoriality, social hierarchy, pecking orders, and competition for mates aren't just confined to the animal kingdom. Indeed, the natural laws of power and association are two major areas we have in common with our animal brethren.

He notes that the rich, as well as animals, know that power, control of resources and social dominance is what it's all about, despite any of their claims to the contrary. One must be confident, have good posture, walk straight, look people right in the eye, go directly after what one wants, and remember it's all about winning-winning-winning. The richs' influential friends, big houses, glamorous hobbies are all signs of dominance, as is a single-minded determination to impose one's vision on the world.

Conniff also points out that the softer side of domination is that of association. The rich know that "you are who you know." One must make friends shrewdly, cultivate allies, go to the right schools, live in the right neighborhoods, give to socially desirable charities, throw parties and invite all the right people. For humans, social intelligence is as important for survival as navigational skills are for arctic turns. Knowing the right people, places, pleasures - the sorts of things a rich person should know - is the only reliable badge of admission among the rich. And realize that the rich aren't out to impress the masses - the rich want to impress other rich people, not those far down the pecking order. Wanting to impress the masses is like a peacock wanting to impress a dog.

Finally, Conniff explores the age old question, "Is the world inhabited by the rich different?" Of course there are more comforts; the rich enjoy what the world has to offer, and family dynasties give heirs a sense of continuity and tradition. But the downside is that although wealth might not change you, it most surely changes the way people treat you. The rich are used to people sucking up to them, and expect but are suspicious of being flattered by their servants, friends, and potential allies. Also, the rich tend to socialize amongst themselves, and experience a sort of social isolation, going to the same restaurants, vacationing in the same spots, dating other "suitable" rich people, intermarrying amongst themselves. Through all these behaviors, they slowly dissolve anything they have in common with most other people, so being rich can be lonely. They live as birds in gilded cages.

Overall, this was a good light read. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Hear me Roar
Review: I agree with the previous reviewer. If you are like me, always on the lookout for a not-too-serious books in a sociology section, you may enjoy it, as well. I am giving this book four stars only because at some point the zoology comparisons can wear you out.

Rating:
Summary: A Joy to Read
Review: Put away your highlighter and pen. This is not a serious book. You won't be taking notes.

Instead, relax and prepare to enjoy some malicious gossip: a vicious, little joke. Conniff's tome is similar to the middle class matron who begins a joke with, "Did you hear the one about the rich guy, who...?" It is vindictive. It is mean-spirited. It paints with too broad a brush to be accurate. It appeals to our baser instincts. ...AND IT IS FUN!

This is the most amusing book that I've read in years. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Delightful!!
Review: Richard Conniff is one of my favorite writers and this current offering is just as intellectually stimulating and entertaining as any of his previous works. Enjoy a walk on the wild side while Mr. Conniff explores our animal nature as it pertains to the most wealthy among us. Travel back to a time when wealth was not measured in monetary terms as we know it now but in such things as exotic foods offered to guests and how great a party you could throw. Insightful theories as to how the rich became rich and how they remain rich coupled with the observation of behaviors that echo our ape ancestors sets this literary effort apart from your usual sociological exploration. This well written and humorous effort deserves a standing ovation and a cry of BRAVO!

Rating:
Summary: Delightful!!
Review: Richard Conniff is one of my favorite writers and this current offering is just as intellectually stimulating and entertaining as any of his previous works. Enjoy a walk on the wild side while Mr. Conniff explores our animal nature as it pertains to the most wealthy among us. Travel back to a time when wealth was not measured in monetary terms as we know it now but in such things as exotic foods offered to guests and how great a party you could throw. Insightful theories as to how the rich became rich and how they remain rich coupled with the observation of behaviors that echo our ape ancestors sets this literary effort apart from your usual sociological exploration. This well written and humorous effort deserves a standing ovation and a cry of BRAVO!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Richard Conniff's book on the habits of the rich is presented as a joke right from the start. He's decided to compare theories of evolutionary biology in the animal kingdom to the behavior of rich people, but he's not trying to be scientific about it. That tongue-in-cheek approach makes this book very easy to read. It's always light and often funny.

But Conniff covers two basic ideas over and over. See, the rich like to display their wealth the same way that a peacock displays its colorful tail. And all rich people want to be "alphas" just silverback gorillas in the jungle. That's it. That's the whole book, summed up in two sentences.

Conniff's idea that the rich are the fittest of the species is very weak. He disregards the fact that rich people inherit their wealth. If they didn't earn it, there's no reason to think they are the best of the best. Rich people aren't examples of alphas, either. Their displays of wealth are often impractical, hard to read, and too easy to copy among the general population. For example, when everyone has an SUV, rich people can't show off their wealth by driving an SUV. So they get Hummers. But Hummers seem too impractical to generate envy among ordinary people, so the display of wealth doesn't work.

These complications make the book a bit of a joke, which Conniff acknowledges right from the start. So if you want to read a light, humorous book of anecdotes about rich people throwing parties --- juxtaposed with anecdotes about plumage and gorillas --- this is the book for you. But you don't like wasting time, you should probably read something else.

Rating:
Summary: Animals All
Review: We are interested in what rich people do. They make the big homes, and the big deals, and have the fanciest clothes and the best choice in dates. We enjoy it when they do things that are silly, stupid, or mistaken. In doing so, we are really doing nothing more than our hominid ancestors did in paying close attention to the chiefs of their tribes; they may not have had money back then, but they had the status and they were carefully watched because of it. Interest in the rich is programmed in our genes. Thus it is a delight to find that the rich can be studied as objects of natural curiosity. Richard Conniff usually writes about other species, but has taken the techniques of the naturalist to study the habits of _homo sapiens peconiosus_ (rich people) in _The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide_ (Norton). He writes that instead of animals in the field, he "... had found a new quarry, and they were possibly the most dangerous and elusive animals on earth." Throughout his witty and informative book, he shows a great sense of fun with his evaluation of this extraordinary species.

Conniff gives us many views of rich people acting like animals. The analogies are often easily drawn and obvious. This should not be surprising. Successful tribal animals from all species are driven by "the quest for control, dominance, mating opportunities, and, above all, status." The rich are predatory like jungle cats, or busy with penile displays, like monkeys. It seems that many rich men are addicted to peeing in relatively public places as a show of domination. Ted Turner, who shows up often in this book, gave away a billion dollars to the UN, and disdained his fellow rich people who weren't, in his opinion, doing their share, as he quite ostentatiously was. A virtue is more of a virtue if it is performed privately and not for show, but the rich don't play the game that way any more than other primates do; what he had done was make a "bid for status, as plain as the chest-thumping of rival silverback gorillas." The rich maintain that they already have it made and they don't have any need to impress anyone, but that's not the way they behave: "...they usually mean only that they have drastically narrowed down the list of people they are interested in impressing." Other rich people, or ghosts of doubting fathers or teachers.

Part of the fun of the book is that Conniff knows a wealth of examples to draw upon, and there is lots to learn about what we usually take to be animals as well as rich people. For instance, in discussing the way rich men have arranged for other men not to make attempts on their wives ("mate guarding"), he informs us about dragon flies. Anyone who has seen dragonflies knows that they spend some of their time flying in tandem, with the male locked onto the female. It is wrong to assume they are enjoying in-flight coitus; probably they already got that out of the way, but the male is sticking to his mate until she lays her eggs so that other males don't get to her beforehand. So various behaviors of the rich (kin selection, altruism, status symbols, territoriality, scent marking, hoarding) amusingly can be found in some much lower species. The ease of the analogies is partially due to the baroque variations of behavior found all over the animal kingdom; one can find some species somewhere doing almost anything, and another doing the opposite. In fact, when analogizing the way rich grooms give presents to brides, Conniff tells about the male hangingfly who presents an edible morsel to a prospective mate, but warns, "The leap from hangingflies to humans is of course perilous." Just so, but such leaps are entertaining as well. Conniff's examination of the rich is not a scientific study as much as it is a bunch of funny stories about how odd those rich people are, stories made funnier by finding that they behave in ways just like other animals do.

Rating:
Summary: Animals All
Review: We are interested in what rich people do. They make the big homes, and the big deals, and have the fanciest clothes and the best choice in dates. We enjoy it when they do things that are silly, stupid, or mistaken. In doing so, we are really doing nothing more than our hominid ancestors did in paying close attention to the chiefs of their tribes; they may not have had money back then, but they had the status and they were carefully watched because of it. Interest in the rich is programmed in our genes. Thus it is a delight to find that the rich can be studied as objects of natural curiosity. Richard Conniff usually writes about other species, but has taken the techniques of the naturalist to study the habits of _homo sapiens peconiosus_ (rich people) in _The Natural History of the Rich: A Field Guide_ (Norton). He writes that instead of animals in the field, he "... had found a new quarry, and they were possibly the most dangerous and elusive animals on earth." Throughout his witty and informative book, he shows a great sense of fun with his evaluation of this extraordinary species.

Conniff gives us many views of rich people acting like animals. The analogies are often easily drawn and obvious. This should not be surprising. Successful tribal animals from all species are driven by "the quest for control, dominance, mating opportunities, and, above all, status." The rich are predatory like jungle cats, or busy with penile displays, like monkeys. It seems that many rich men are addicted to peeing in relatively public places as a show of domination. Ted Turner, who shows up often in this book, gave away a billion dollars to the UN, and disdained his fellow rich people who weren't, in his opinion, doing their share, as he quite ostentatiously was. A virtue is more of a virtue if it is performed privately and not for show, but the rich don't play the game that way any more than other primates do; what he had done was make a "bid for status, as plain as the chest-thumping of rival silverback gorillas." The rich maintain that they already have it made and they don't have any need to impress anyone, but that's not the way they behave: "...they usually mean only that they have drastically narrowed down the list of people they are interested in impressing." Other rich people, or ghosts of doubting fathers or teachers.

Part of the fun of the book is that Conniff knows a wealth of examples to draw upon, and there is lots to learn about what we usually take to be animals as well as rich people. For instance, in discussing the way rich men have arranged for other men not to make attempts on their wives ("mate guarding"), he informs us about dragon flies. Anyone who has seen dragonflies knows that they spend some of their time flying in tandem, with the male locked onto the female. It is wrong to assume they are enjoying in-flight coitus; probably they already got that out of the way, but the male is sticking to his mate until she lays her eggs so that other males don't get to her beforehand. So various behaviors of the rich (kin selection, altruism, status symbols, territoriality, scent marking, hoarding) amusingly can be found in some much lower species. The ease of the analogies is partially due to the baroque variations of behavior found all over the animal kingdom; one can find some species somewhere doing almost anything, and another doing the opposite. In fact, when analogizing the way rich grooms give presents to brides, Conniff tells about the male hangingfly who presents an edible morsel to a prospective mate, but warns, "The leap from hangingflies to humans is of course perilous." Just so, but such leaps are entertaining as well. Conniff's examination of the rich is not a scientific study as much as it is a bunch of funny stories about how odd those rich people are, stories made funnier by finding that they behave in ways just like other animals do.

Rating:
Summary: Amusing and surprisingly intelligent
Review: What shocked me most about this book is how... smart it is! The author, Richard Conniff, writes for everything from "National Geographic" to "Architectural Digest" and is obviously "in the know" on the side. As a result, he comes off as very intelligent and witty, and I learned more about animal behavior than I did about human behavior.

Yes, it is a very witty book. But it also has a serious streak. He backs up his stories of gluttony and excess with anecdotal science from the natural world. He adds just enough history of the rich to provide a firm background and to show that some things just never change.

You might be embarrassed to be seen reading it, but it's definately worth picking up. It's fascinating to see how the other .0001% live, and I guarentee you'll learn something.

Rating:
Summary: Amusing and surprisingly intelligent
Review: What shocked me most about this book is how... smart it is! The author, Richard Conniff, writes for everything from "National Geographic" to "Architectural Digest" and is obviously "in the know" on the side. As a result, he comes off as very intelligent and witty, and I learned more about animal behavior than I did about human behavior.

Yes, it is a very witty book. But it also has a serious streak. He backs up his stories of gluttony and excess with anecdotal science from the natural world. He adds just enough history of the rich to provide a firm background and to show that some things just never change.

You might be embarrassed to be seen reading it, but it's definately worth picking up. It's fascinating to see how the other .0001% live, and I guarentee you'll learn something.