In 1968, the young sociology graduate student Martin Nicolaus gave a speech at the American Sociological Association excoriating his discipline. “The eyes of sociologists,” Nicolaus argued, “have been turned downward, and their palms upward.” In other words, sociologists study those at the bottom of society, at the behest of and to the benefit of those on top. He challenged his colleagues to play a different role, to turn the machinery of observation around, and instead subject those at the top of society to their scientific scrutiny, for the benefit of those at the bottom.

By and large, sociologists have not taken up Nicolaus’s challenge. One social scientist (perhaps not coincidentally, a psychologist rather than a sociologist), however, has made a career of doing so: G. William Domhoff.

In 1967, Domhoff published the first edition of Who Rules America?, a book that set out to map the power structure of American life. Written in the mid-1960s in the wake of civil rights and free speech movement organizing, the book answered its titular question by mobilizing an array of sources to demonstrate that policy in the United States is overwhelmingly made by and for the rich. Over the next fifty years, Domhoff would produce six additional editions of the book, revising, updating, and expanding it significantly.