The brilliant mind of cinema and philosophy is made new again in this book by two writers passionate (and informed) about their subject. Where else can you read of American philosophy's presence in the films of Charlie Chaplin and Frank Capra? Interdisciplinary studies at its best.

I characterize American Elites as being all preparation and no "H". That is, the authors offer many arguments but fail to address any of them adequately. The book is severely flawed for many reasons. (1)Initially, I found the authors' main contentions to be highly un-provocative. The book argues that American leadership groups are not a power elite, but are a system of multiple, competing, strategic elites. The book essentially challenges the notion of the power elite, in favor of a competing strategic elite. Unfortunately, the authors never discuss the implications of this distinction. The authors lead me to believe that both the power elite and the strategic elite maintain the same influence regardless of their respective modes of operation. Why should we should the reader care if elite influence is either 'power' or 'strategic' if the impact on the general public is the same. (2) My first objection is misleading because it implies that I buy their notion of a strategic elite. The authors arguments are not very compelling at all. Additionally, the findings may be questioned considering their sample was taken in 1982. This means that 14 years had passed since the book was publishes in 1996. (3) Beyond content, this book is hard to read; I do not mean to imply that the content is at all challenging. The authors lack continuity from chapter to chapter. Ideas "developed" in one chapter are never extended in later chapters.

Lerner, Nagai and Rothman have presented a jumbled mess of source material on American Elites and Elite Theory. Most of the claims are unsubstantiated, but some bring some important points of interest to light. First, you have to have patience to get through the incoherent, unscrupulous pollster techniques and statistics that usually don't even help back up the arguments the authors present. A clear thesis is never presented and the reader doesn't know exactly where the authors are going for the majority of the book. American Elites attempts to discredit the Power Elite Theory in America. The authors assume that because certain groups have differing social opinions they cannot work together in a cohesive elite group. They use corporate elites (big business) and cultural elites (entertainment) as an example, claiming disagreement between the two groups on social issues makes them incompatible. However, cultural elites and corporate elites have worked together from the beginning. In essence, the authors over emphasize social issues while not accepting the codependence of groups on economic issues. American Elites does bring up interesting theories on the effects of the 1960's social movement and how the movement has affected modern thought and social trends. This is an interesting theory that leaves the reader wanting more. Unfortunately, once again, the authors don't truly investigate and explain the issue. American Elites is a must read for liberals looking for information on an opposing viewpoint (An excellent opposition of W. Domhoff's "Who Rules America?"). It is a great book for comparison and information on a conservative stance on Elite Theory. If you can get through it, it's worth the read.

This book is an excellent brief analysis of elites in America. While the data is admittedly slightly dated, it is theoretically broad and well analyzed. The results are discussed with amazing theoretical clarity. While this book will please few ideologues, it will please most serious sociology and political science students.

This is a good book to be criticized. To understand what Lichter and Rothman wrote, I need to read this book sentence by sentence. If you read this book, DO NOT forget to read the footnote, because without reading the footnote you could misinterpret the content of this book. Their writing styles will make you need a special time to read this book.