Who gets rich, and why? -- Where did private equity come from? -- Who are they? -- What do they do? -- How are they any different? -- How do you study them? -- Where's the value? -- Do we even have time? -- To buy or not to buy? -- What should we think of ourselves?

This is an extraordinary book, huge in every way, one man's personal synthesis of the world we live in, as seen through his own experience of Norway's largest business corporation and much much more. The book and the author have a lot going for them. There are few in-depth anthropological...