G. William (Bill) Domhoff is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In addition to previous editions of this book, he is the author or co-author of 20 other books on power and diversity in the United States, including The Higher Circles (1970), The Powers That Be (1979), Jews in the Protestant Establishment (1982, with Richard L. Zweigenhaft), The Power Elite and the State (1990), Blacks in the White Elite (2003, with Richard L. Zweigenhaft), The Leftmost City (2009, with Richard Gendron), Class and Power in the New Deal (2011, with Michael J. Webber), and Diversity in the Power Elite (2018, with Richard L. Zweigenhaft). Most recently, he searched over two dozen archives to write The Corporate Rich and the Power Elite in the Twentieth Century (2020).

Introduction: Setting the Stage for What Follows; 1. Concepts, Definitions, and Power Indicators; 2. The Corporate Community; 3. The Corporate Community and the Upper Class; 4. The Corporate Rich, The Policy-Planning Network, and the Power Elite; 5. The Role of Public Opinion; 6. Parties and Elections; 7. How the Power Elite Dominate Government; 8. Examining the American Power Structure in a Wider Perspective