October 4, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make — and Spend — Their Fortunes
by Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan
The Forbes 400 is “the big-banana index,” its members’ combined wealth, in 2006, totaling 9.5 percent of the United States’ gross domestic product that year, write Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan, who both work as journalists and editors.
Their book discusses the individuals who make up Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans: who they are, what they’re like, how they amassed their riches, how they spend their money, and how they give it away.
“Precisely because they can do as they want and are not bound by convention or legislative constraints, the wealthy can experiment and generate remarkable change,” the authors write.
A chapter on philanthropy discusses historic gifts from Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and others, and a table lists the estimated lifetime giving of the most-generous Forbes 400 members and the causes they support. Education gets the most money, followed by health research and the arts.
A highlighted section lists “superrich board members” at several important cultural centers. The chapter also details “quirky or off-the-beaten-track giving,” such as $1-million donated by Ted Waitt, the founder of Gateway, for a National Geographic project on Judas Iscariot.
Other chapters explore personality characteristics of extremely rich Americans, “blue-collar billionaires,” heirs and family feuds, money in Silicon Valley, and other topics.
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, 1745 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10019; http://www.aaknopf.com; 416 pages; $26.95; ISBN 978-0-307-26612-5.
