i read this book as part of a sociology class my senior year of high school and as brainless as i was at the time it still caught my attention as i suspect it will yours should you choose to read it;

Sociologist  C. Wright Mills wrote a book in 1956 that (sadly) still resonates today. In his book ‘The Power Elite’ Mills focused on groups and individuals who help to control this Republic for countless generations:

• the “Metropolitan 400”: members of historically notable local families in the principal American cities, generally represented on the Social Register
• “Celebrities”: prominent entertainers and media personalities
• the “Chief Executives”: presidents and CEOs of the most important companies within each industrial sector
• the “Corporate Rich”: major landowners and corporate shareholders
• the “Warlords”: senior military officers, most importantly the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• the “Political Directorate”: “fifty-odd men of the executive branch” of the U.S. federal government, including the senior leadership in the Executive Office of the President, sometimes variously drawn from elected officials of the Democratic and Republican parties but usually professional government bureaucrats

Mills formulated a very short summary of his book:

“Who, after all, runs America? No one runs it altogether, but in so far as any group does, the power elite.”...........read more...........