Empire of the Elite - by Michael M Grynbaum (Hardcover)

About the Book

"From a New York Times media correspondent, a dishy history of the Condâe Nast magazine empire, home of Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and more, focusing on its glitzy heyday from the 1980s through the 2000s"--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

From a New York Times media correspondent, a dishy history of the Condé Nast magazine empire, home of Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and more, focusing on its glitzy heyday from the 1980s through the 2000s.

For decades, Condé Nast and its glittering magazines defined how to live the good life in America. The brilliant, complicated, striving characters behind Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, Architectural Digest, and many other titles manufactured a vision of luxury and sophistication that shaped consumer habits, cultural trends, intellectual attitudes, and political beliefs the world over. Condé's billionaire owner Si Newhouse and his stable of star editors, photographers, and writers were the gatekeepers who decided what and who mattered, and they offered those opinions to tens of millions of readers every month. They were the ultimate influencers--before social media changed everything. The magazines crowned celebrities by the dozens, patronized creative talent much as the Medicis had underwritten Renaissance artists, and supercharged opulent events like the Vanity Fair Oscar Party and the Met Gala, which came to rival any fete that Louis XIV ever hosted at Versailles. The book is full of fresh behind-the-scenes reporting about a plethora of boldface names and sets out to explain how Condé Nast established itself as a de facto American aristocracy, anointing an elite and dictating the culture they presided over.

The colorful story of Condé Nast at its zenith and the profound way it influenced how Americans aspired to look, eat, decorate, date, marry, and even think, has never been examined deeply. Empire of the Elite is the first book-length history of an empire whose publications refashioned American notions of prestige, whose editors became celebrities themselves, and whose diminution offers a cautionary tale of class, hubris, and technological change, even as its aesthetic and ethos remain influential to this day.

Review Quotes

"Juicy, illuminating, and relentless in its reporting, making it a must read for anyone fascinated by media and its leviathans."--Town & Country

"The newest entry in the small but mesmerizing genre you might call Condé lit...this reported saga doubles as a shrewd cultural history of the 20th century."--New York Magazine

"The technical word for this book is juicy."--Christian Lorentzen, The New York Times Book Review

"Grynbaum's book has all the goods to induce mania in anyone with aspirations to work in media...
Ultimately, what do we long for when we long for the golden age of Condé Nast? It is the dream of having money -- and taste."--Rachel Tashjian, Washington Post

"Grynbaum, a veteran reporter for the New York Times, fills his chronicle of Newhouse's half-century at the helm of the legendary publisher with enough gossip and arcana to satisfy even the most devoted of Condé Nast obsessives."--James Tarmy, Bloomberg

"A delightful and fascinating anthropological study of American culture in the '80s and '90s through the lens of Conde Nast."--Vogue, "The Run-Through"

"A definitive account of a media titan."
--Publishers Weekly

"A well-crafted portrait of a publishing house whose fortunes reflect those of the magazine industry as a whole."--Kirkus

"An anecdotal feast."--Peter Osnos, founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs books

"I loved this gorgeous romp through a lost world, and the emperors and empresses who made it. Mike Grynbaum is the perfect smart and wry chronicler of that age of haute hubris, which has been replaced with something a lot less spirited and fun. This book should be served with cocktails and a cackle."--Marina Hyde, columnist, The Guardian, co-host, The Rest Is Entertainment

"As someone who grew up worshipping several Condé Nast titles and using them to become an adult, I've been waiting for a book like Empire of the Elite for decades. Every page is entertaining, smart, and generous toward the many players in this unique saga. Grynbaum also has a wicked sense of humor that made me grin and sometimes even helplessly laugh."
--Gary Shteyngart, author, Super Sad True Love Story

About the Author

Michael M. Grynbaum is a correspondent for The New York Times, where he covers media, politics, and culture. Since joining The New York Times as a staff writer at age twenty-two, he has reported on three presidential campaigns, two New York City mayors, and the 2008 financial crisis. He graduated from Harvard with a degree in history and literature, and lives in Manhattan.