Acknowledgments

The moment I heard from my agents, Sally Holloway and George Lucas, that Little, Brown and Hodder Sceptre were going to publish my book under the title Wealth Secrets of the One Percent, I realized there was shakedown potential. I called up my successful friends, threatening to feature them in the book unless they provided various favors, such as reading and commenting in detail on early drafts, or allowing me to stay for days in their palatial homes while writing or researching the book.

The victims of such schemes, to whom I am very grateful for the comments and hospitality, even if provided under duress, include: Matthew Canepa, Rafael Gamba, Dan Goldstein, Mo Henderson, Larry Jones, Peter Jordan, Jeff Lang, Dan Lefkovitz, Jordan Matus, Kara Murphy, Laurence Williams, Michio Wise, and Marvin Zonis. My parents, Judy and Peter Wilkin, also provided their review and comments.

My editors, John Parsley at Little, Brown, and Drummond Moir at Hodder Sceptre, not only reviewed and significantly improved the multiple drafts they read, but contributed several of the best lines. The same goes for Sally Holloway of Felicity Bryan Associates and George Lucas of InkWell Management, my agents mentioned above. Sally also reshaped the book at the proposal stage, from yet another dreary academic text into the fun and useful guide to wealth it is today. The amusing and shocking U.S. cover is by Ploy Siripant. The U.K. market demanded a more subtle cover, by Natalie Chen. I’d also like to thank Chris Jerome, the copy editor, production editor Ben Allen, and associate editor Malin von Euler-Hogan.

I asked a panel of academic reviewers to look at each chapter from a specialist’s perspective. The reviewers were: Helen Garten, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University; Matthew Gibbs, Assistant Professor, University of Winnipeg; Richard R. John, Professor, Columbia University; John Lopatka, A. Robert Noll Distinguished Professor of Law, Penn State University; and Surajit Mazumdar, Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Richard and Surajit were particularly generous with their time and insights. The demands of a readable narrative meant that I was not always able to take their good advice; any remaining oversimplifications or outright errors are my own. Look to the sources in the bibliography (including their own works) for more nuanced tellings.

As I made progress on the book, it became clear that I would need to do a number of interviews where the available academic research was a little thin. Luis Miranda was extraordinarily helpful in providing contacts for this purpose, as well as giving me a useful background briefing on Indian business (as he did some fifteen years ago when I first met him in Mumbai). Marvin Zonis, Dan Lefkovitz, Stephanie Hare, Nigel Singh, and Alison Taylor also provided useful contacts in India. Vicky Mehta provided an excellent introduction to Mumbai. Hriday Kant provided capable research assistance.

I must also thank my teachers in economics, particularly Diana Fuguitt. Having spent much of my career in a “macro” frame of mind, I was grateful for having stumbled, with her assistance, into a teaching assistant role in Eckerd College’s microeconomics course many years ago.

Finally, my partner, Carrie Nordlund, gamely provided her comments on not one but several drafts, and handled my year of complaining about money issues with equanimity. Writing is not as lucrative as economic research. Although the copyright available to authors is a miniature monopoly, and thus a (very small) wealth secret.