There is fascination and suspicion about the wealthy. Yet there is a dearth of material in which the wealthy speak for themselves about the meaning of their lives. "Gospels of Wealth" provides such narrative material. This book is a novel venture in social science. It is the first book to have a broad range of wealthy individuals recount their lives in detail, and, importantly, the first to formulate a sociology of wealth that goes beyond conventional, power-elite, Marxist, and status-group theories.

The authors begin with an analytical framework for studying the biographical narratives...