Richistan: A Journey Through the 21st Century Wealth Boom and the New Rich, by Robert Frank

That's Robert Frank's name for what is effectively a state within a state for America's super-loaded, the bankers and brokers whose take-home pay in 2004 topped $1.35 trillion. This lively collection of dispatches from moneybags central takes Frank to a boot camp for butlers, a boutique stocking Richistan's favourite brand of watch (price tag: $750,000), and masterclasses instructing the younger residents how to cope with all that cash when their daddies — and sugar daddies — have passed on.

Synopsis by Foyles.co.uk

Imagine a country populated with nothing but millionaires. Let's call it Richistan...In this riveting book, "Wall Street Journal" reporter Robert Frank explores the lives and lifestyles of a new breed of millionaires and billionaires - many of them self-made and from blue-collar backgrounds - and how this new gilded age is affecting wider society. Profiles of 'instapreneurs', dot-com billionaires, and eccentrics from the lower and upper reaches of Richistan take us into the rarified world of people like Ed Bazinet, who became a multi-millionaire by selling miniature ceramic villages, and Tim Blixseth, who earned billions by trading remote stretches of timberland. The influence wielded by the newly wealthy goes far beyond their earning power, and Frank also explores the lifestyles developing around them (butler schools and a new type of service employee, self-help groups for people worth $10 million or more) as well as where their money is going (the commodification of the art world, the rise of 'market-driven' philanthropy). As wealth creation becomes more and more globalised, "Richistan" looks behind the glitz to find the real story of new money and its impact on the world.