"The analysis of social distinction cannot indefinitely remain confined to logics of reasoning that are markedly ethnocentric. To understand many manifestations, past and present, of superiority, we need to do more than just apply the allegedly ubiquitous schemes of Veblen or Bourdieu. The time for abstract universalising grand theories is over. What is required instead is an inductive approach which starts from the realities of an ever more global field and aims at developing models of interpretation that are sensitive to the whole array of observable attitudes. This book, which is a follow up to the critical enterprise initiated in The Sociology of Elite Distinction, provides new foundations for the comparative study of this important subject. It is a must-read for social scientists and beyond." -- Publisher website.