The book from W. David Marx lays out how individuals in pursuit of status trigger the cultural mechanisms behind taste, identity, fashion, art, class, subcultures, and the current state of internet culture.

Marx is a long-time writer on culture based in Tokyo. he is also the author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style.

If Ametora was a specific case study of “how culture happens” and how trends form, this new book is a deep look into the universal principles of cultural change — all with status as the motor.