''Who Rules America?'' is a book by research psychologist and sociologist

G. William Domhoff George William "Bill" Domhoff (born August 6, 1936) is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus and research professor of psychology and sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a founding faculty member of UCSC's Cowell College. He i ...

, Ph.D., published in 1967 as a best-seller (#12). ''WRA'' is frequently assigned as a sociology textbook and documents the dangerous concentration of power and wealth in the

American upper class The American upper class is a social group within the United States consisting of people who have the highest social rank, primarily due to economic wealth. The American upper class is distinguished from the rest of the population due to the fa ...

. More recent editions have brought the discussion up to date and include the rise of

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

, and the trend toward

nationalism Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...

in the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa *Republican Party (Liberia) * Republican Part ...

Summary

Domhoff argues in the book(s) that a

power elite In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...

wields power in America transparently through its support of think-tanks, foundations, commissions, and academic departments. Additionally, he argues that the elite control institutions through overt authority, not through covert influence. In his introduction, Domhoff writes that the book was inspired by the work of four previous researchers: sociologists

E. Digby Baltzell Edward Digby Baltzell Jr. (November 14, 1915 – August 17, 1996) was an American sociologist, academic and author. He studied the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment and is credited with popularizing the acronym ''WASP''. He was also a b ...

C. Wright Mills Charles Wright Mills (August 28, 1916 – March 20, 1962) was an American Sociology, sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills published widely in both popular and intellectual journ ...

, economist

Paul Sweezy Paul Marlor Sweezy (April 10, 1910 – February 27, 2004) was a Marxist economist, political activist, publisher, and founding editor of the long-running magazine ''Monthly Review''. He is best remembered for his contributions to economic theory ...

, and political scientist

Robert A. Dahl Robert Alan Dahl (; December 17, 1915 – February 5, 2014) was an American political theorist and Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He established the pluralist theory of democracy—in which political outcomes are ...

. The

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

hosts Domhoff's ''Who Rules America?'' web site."Who Rules America?"
''whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu''.

Publication history

The original edition was followed by seven subsequent editions:"Studying the Power Elite: Fifty Years of Who Rules America?"
(2017).

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...

. *''Who Rules America Now?'' (1983) *''Who Rules America? Power and Politics in the Year 2000'' (1998) *''Who Rules America? Power and Politics'' (2002) *''Who Rules America? Power, Politics, & Social Change'' (2006) *''Who Rules America? Challenges to Corporate and Class Dominance'' (2010) *''Who Rules America? The Triumph of the Corporate Rich'' (2014) *''Studying the Power Elite: Fifty Years of Who Rules America'' (2017) *''Who Rules America? The Corporate Rich, White Nationalist Republicans, and Inclusionary Democrats in the 2020s'' (2022)

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website"Who Rules America?"
(1987). An interview and discussion with

about his book on '' Alternative Views''. ** Episode 334 (Part 1) ** Episode 335 (Part 2) Sociology books