All the errors and oversights in this book are, of course, my own. But its virtues build on the work I’ve done over the past two decades as a journalist and the people who taught me while I did it. In particular, this book draws on my work for the Financial Times covering Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, and on Sale of the Century, my book about the rise of the oligarchs. Work I did for the Financial Times in the United States, particularly a profile of George Soros and an essay on Canadian banks, also inform this book. My Atlantic cover story on the global super-elite was my first public articulation of the ideas in this book; research I did for my Atlantic essay on Skolkovo, the Russian Silicon Valley, also proved useful. My weekly column for Reuters and the International Herald Tribune was a valuable space for working out my thinking, as were Reuters video interviews and the Reuters magazine.
I am grateful to many colleagues, editors, and sparring partners. Chief among them: Martin Wolf, Alison Wolf, John Lloyd, David Hoffman, John Gapper, Felix Salmon, Jim Impoco, Jim Ledbetter, Mike Williams, Stuart Karle, Alison Smale, Anatole Kaletsky, David Rohde, David Wighton, Gary Silverman, Francesco Guerrera, John Thornhill, Alan Beattie, Krishna Guha, Robert Thomson, Annalena McAfee, Andrew Gowers, Richard Lambert, Daniel Franklin, Sebastian Mallaby, Fareed Zakaria, David Frum, Arianna Huffington, Eliot Spitzer, Steve Brill, Anya Schiffrin, Steve Clemons, Susan Glasser, and Ali Velshi. Dennis Gartman and Joshua Brown, two business thinkers whose work I admire, generously allowed me to quote their writing at length. Steve Adler, my boss, has been uniquely and crucially supportive, providing vital intellectual guidance and emotional encouragement. I owe a special debt to Don Peck, who edited my 2011 Atlantic essay and read and improved a first draft of this book; James Bennett, who commissioned the piece; and to David Bradley.
This book draws on a vast body of academic research. Some scholars have become important sounding boards and advisers, too. They include Larry Summers, Daron Acemoglu, Emmanuel Saez, Jacob Hacker, Alan Krueger, Branko Milanovic, Daniel Kaufmann, Ian Bremmer, Peter Lindert, Michael Spence, Joe Stiglitz, Theda Skocpol, Anders Aslund, Roman Frydman, Rob Johnson, Sergei Guriev, Michael McFaul, Ernesto Zedillo, John Van Reenen, Raghuram Rajan, Shamus Khan, and the late Yegor Gaidar.
I sometimes describe my own political philosophy as being simply “Canadian,” and my Maple Leaf community has been central to my thinking. Important friends and teachers are Roger Martin, Geoff Beattie, Mark Carney, Diana Carney, Paul Martin, Dominic Barton, Mark Wiseman, David Thomson, John Stackhouse, Anne McLellan, Annalise Acorn, Don Tapscott, and Morris Rosenberg.
Many plutocrats have helped me to understand their world and some have become friends (though that does not mean we always agree). They include: George Soros, Eric Schmidt, Victor Pinchuk, David and Mary Boies, Nikesh Arora, Jeff Immelt, Peter Weinberg, Mark Gallogly, Roger Altman, David Rubenstein, Bill Ford, Bob Rubin, Klaus Schwab, Aditya Mittal, Mikhail Fridman, Vladimir Gusinsky, and Igor Malashenko.
My editors, researchers, and agents have been amazingly committed. Above all, the wise and brilliant Ann Godoff has steered this book through many iterations and tolerated my efforts to appoint her my surrogate mother. Peter Rudegeair, my erudite and fastidious researcher, has done a huge amount of research and has been an essential intellectual sounding board. Ben Platt, Ann’s assistant, will one day run Penguin. He has been terrifically supportive together with Peter and rescued the endnotes. From Olympus, Marjorie Scardino and John Makinson blessed this project early on. My agents, first Pat Kavanagh and Zoë Pagnamenta and now Andrew Wylie, found an audience for me and encouraged me to keep going. Andrew, who never sleeps, read my drafts seemingly before they were written.
Several colleagues and friends went above and beyond the call of duty to help pin down elusive facts. I am especially grateful to my colleagues Amy Stevens and Nate Raymonds for their legal expertise and to Kieran Murray, Dave Graham, Cyntia Barrera, and Krista Hughes in Latin America. Mark MacKinnon, a colleague from the Globe and Mail, generously shared his China expertise. Boris Davidenko, of Forbes Ukraine, helped with facts about my second homeland. Four professional fact-checkers—Rachael Brown, Ellie Smith, Nicole Allen, and Esther Yi—combed through the book collaboratively, meticulously, and at very short notice.
My best friends have been unflagging cheerleaders and sources of great ideas. Thank you Alison Franklin, Roberta Brzezinski, Lucan Way, Annette Ryan, Karen Berman. The Ukrainian women of Nannies, Inc., particularly Nadiya Basaraba and Ira Andreychuk, have kept my kids alive during the gestation of this book, which has often seemed to be my fourth child.
Finally, I am more dependent on my extended family than anyone else I know. My aunts Natalka Chomiak, Maria Hopchin, and Chrystia Chomiak, and my mother-in-law, Barbara Bowley, have been mothers and intellectual supporters throughout this project. My father, Don Freeland, and my sister Natalka Freeland have been critical intellectual and moral influences. My sister Anne Freeland and my cousin-sisters Katrusia Ensslen and Eva Himka have taken care of me and my brood. Above all, whatever is good about this book is thanks to my husband and writing comrade, Graham Bowley, and the three most important people in our lives—Natalka Bowley, Halyna Bowley, and Ivan Bowley.