title: Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There
author:  David Brooks 
description: You've seen them: They sip double-tall, nonfat lattes, chat on cell phones, and listen to NPR while driving their immaculate SUVs to Pottery Barn to shop for $48 titanium spatulas. They tread down specialty cheese aisles in top-of-the-line hiking boots and think nothing of laying down $5 for an olive-wheatgrass muffin. They're the bourgeois bohemians--"Bobos"--an unlikely blend of mainstream culture and 1960s-era counterculture that, according to David Brooks, represents both America's present and future: "These Bobos define our age. They are the new establishment. Their hybrid culture is the atmosphere we all breathe. Their status codes now govern social life." Amusing stereotypes aside, they're an "elite based on brainpower" and merit rather than pedigree or lineage: "Dumb good-looking people with great parents have been displaced by smart, ambitious, educated, and antiestablishment people with scuffed shoes."
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  Also by David Brooks
  
  
  ON PARADISE DRIVE:  
  HOW WE LIVE NOW (AND ALWAYS HAVE)  
  IN THE FUTURE TENSE
  
  
  BOBOS IN PARADISE:  
  THE NEW UPPER CLASS AND  
  HOW THEY GOT THERE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/Broo_9780679603931_epub_tp_r1.gif)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Copyright © 2011 by David Brooks
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Published in the United States by Random House,  
  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,  
  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
  
  
  RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
  
  
  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA  
  Brooks, David  
  The social animal: the hidden sources of love, character, and achievement /
  David Brooks.  
  p. cm.  
  eISBN: 978-0-679-60393-1  
  1\. Man-woman relationships—United States. 2. Social mobility—United States.
  3. Social status—United States. 4. Elite (Social sciences)—United States. 5.
  Character. I. Title.  
  HQ801.B76 2011 305.5′13097