The Aristocracy of Talent

How Meritocracy Made the Modern World

Adrian Wooldridge

• Publisher: Skyhorse
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781510768628
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Economics

The Times (UK) book of the year! Meritocracy: the idea that people should be advanced according to their talents rather than their birth. While this initially seemed like a novel concept, by the end of the twentieth century it had become the world's ruling ideology. How did this happen, and why is meritocracy now under attack from both right and left? In The Aristocracy of Talent, esteemed journalist and historian Adrian Wooldridge traces the history of meritocracy forged by the politicians and officials who introduced the revolutionary principle of open competition, the psychologists who devised methods for measuring natural mental abilities, and the educationalists who built ladders of educational opportunity. He looks outside western cultures and shows what transformative effects it has had everywhere it has been adopted, especially once women were brought into the meritocratic system. Wooldridge also shows how meritocracy has now become corrupted and argues that the recent stalling of social mobility is the result of failure to complete the meritocratic revolution. Rather than abandoning meritocracy, he says, we should call for its renewal.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: A Revolutionary Idea
• PART ONE Priority, Degree and Place
• PART TWO Meritocracy before Modernity
• PART THREE The Rise of the Meritocracy
• PART FOUR The March of the Meritocrats
• PART FIVE The Crisis of the Meritocracy
• Conclusion: Renewing Meritocracy
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Index