In pursuit of privilege: a history of New York City's upper class and the making of a Metropolis

In a history that extends from the 1750s to the present, Clifton Hood recounts upper-class New Yorkers struggle to create a distinct world guarded against outsiders, even as economic growth and democratic opportunity enabled aspirants to gain entrance.

Despite their efforts, New York Citys upper class has been drawn into the larger story of the city both through class conflict and through their role in building New Yorks cultural and economic foundations.In Pursuit of Privilege describes the famous and infamous characters and events at the center of this extraordinary history, from the elite families and wealthy tycoons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to the Wall Street executives of today.

From the start, upper-class New Yorkers have been open and aggressive in their behavior, keen on attaining prestige, power, and wealth.

Hood sharpens this characterization by merging a history of the New York economy in the eighteenth century with the story of Wall Streets emergence as an international financial center in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as the dominance of New Yorks financial and service sectors in the 1980s.

Bringing together several decades of upheaval and change, Hood shows that New Yorks upper class did not rise exclusively from the Gilded Age but rather from a relentless pursuit of privilege, affecting not just the urban elite but the citys entire cultural, economic, and political fabric.