"There Is Good Reason, in Short, for Both Populist Rage and Contemporary Calls for Social Justice"

"Yet Wooldridge's story, told with a wealth of erudition in brisk and readable prose, is not a triumphalist one. In the first place he is open-eyed about meritocracy's blind spots, calling attention throughout the book to those whose talents have been systematically excluded or overlooked, most obviously people of colour. He acknowledges, moreover, the many failings and false routes taken by those who would reduce the worth of a human being to an aptitude score, as well as the hazards and difficulties of trying to capture it in the first place. And he is realistic about the stubborn persistence of privilege. Not only have old elites proved adept at refitting themselves to compete in new circumstances, but contemporary cognitive elites have found ways to perpetuate their own positions and places, passing them on to their offspring in a 'new nepotism' that is all the more noxious for its accompanying sense of entitlement. 'Winners' today are inclined to feel that they deserve all they have, while 'losers' feel humiliated."

At Literary Review, Darrin M McMahon reviews Adrian Wooldridge's The Aristocracy of Talent: How Meritocracy Made the Modern World.