Historian Kim Phillips-Fein's new book, Country of Lords, traces a long lineage of American thinkers and figures who have resisted the ideal of equality, from founding father John Adams to modern tech figures such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Published amid celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the book arrives at a moment of stark economic inequality, with Phillips-Fein pointing to Musk's rise as a trillionaire as emblematic of public unease about concentrated wealth and power and their implications for democracy.

The book spans figures including Adams, whose writings reveal scepticism about egalitarian claims following the French Revolution; Confederate slavery apologist George Fitzhugh; 1920s "scientific racism" author Theodore Lothrop Stoddard; Gilded Age steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, who saw wealth concentration as both inevitable and politically dangerous; and contemporary tech figures such as Thiel. Phillips-Fein, known for earlier works Invisible Hands and the Pulitzer-finalist Fear City, frames the book as an exploration of recurring arguments against economic and social equality throughout US history, and what alternatives might exist to counter extreme hierarchy today.