Joseph Epstein. Snobbery: the American Version.

New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.

Joseph Epstein, a university lecturer and the former editor of The American Scholar, presents in this book an informative and entertaining investigation of snobbery in American life.

"A snob is in one common definition anyone who thinks himself superior in a way that demands recognition," says Epstein, who believes most of us fit this meaning in one way or another. American democracy, be maintains, particularly encourages snobbishness since our culture of social mobility, unlike hierarchical societies, allows individuals the opportunity to climb a ladder of constantly changing rank and preference. (The author notes that Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams, referred to her fellow citizens as "the mobility.")

Snobbery in America used to be about Wasp culture and its accouterments of prep schools, Ivy League colleges, cotillions, debutante balls, the Social Register, etc. But since the fall of the "Waspocracy" new outlets for snobbery have developed in areas such as food and wine, fashion, high-achieving children, schools, politics, health, being with-it, name-dropping, and lots more. Epstein devotes full chapters examining each of these topics.

Is snobbery part of human nature or is it fostered by the conditions of society? Epstein weighs in on this matter and he also presents the views of many literary luminaries who have considered the subject of snobbery. Marcel Proust argued that snobbery is "the greatest sterilizer of inspiration, the greatest deadener of originality, the greatest destroyer of talent." Virginia Woolf wrote, "The essence of snobbery is that you wish to impress other people." H.L. Mencken claimed that Americans are distinguished above all by their desire to climb socially.

Whether you behave like a snob, a "reverse snob" (one who asserts his or her superiority to snobbery in general), or act in ways that preclude snobbery, there is much for you to think about in Snobbery: The American Version. This book is, to my knowledge, the first tome in English targeted exclusively to the subject since the publication of Thackeray's The Book of Snobs in 1848.