The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age

An Amazon Best Book of July 2018: India is the world’s fastest growing democracy, with an economy that is rapidly expanding, making a handful of Indians fantastically wealthy. At the same time, millions of Indians live in poverty, sometimes subsisting just feet from the fancy, almost unimaginable urban homes of the super-rich. James Crabtree uses the home of the reclusive billionaire Mukesh Ambani (that is his home on the cover) as a symbol of an Indian system that Crabtree likens—quite convincingly—to our own Gilded Age. Like in other places around the world, fair government appears to be no match against the vast sums of private capital that the “Bollygarchs” employ to cement their interests. Crabtree uses interviews and riveting reporting to give us a fascinating look into the sudden, sometimes shocking, and seemingly insurmountable rise of the Indian super-elite, as they surf the wave of globalism. –Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review