In this third instalment on the movers and shakers of Canada, social analyst, historian, and gossipmonger Peter C. Newman lays out the case for the decline and fall of the old order and the ascension of the new. The tales are wonderfully well told, the scholarship is stunning, and the range of subjects is nothing short of encyclopedic.

The new meritocracy of Canada, strongly achievement oriented, freespending, more café society than high society, counts among its members CanWest Global founder Izzy Asper, and newspaper magnate Conrad Black. Newman says that Old Money – the Eatons, for example – went bust because it expected little of itself, then delivered on its aspirations. “Few of its leading operatives were ever punished for being stupid, incompetent, or both,” he writes. Indeed, many were given huge bonuses as their firms slumped into loss and ruin.

Into the gap of achievement rushed the New Money, which Newman contrasts as pierced ears vs. hairy ears, iguana sandals vs. lace up oxfords. “New Money tips lavishly and regards waiters as buddies,” he says. “Old Money tips with a dismissive wave of the hand and treats waiters as self-propelled furniture.”

The problem with this facile prose is that, even as the big shots of Canadian business are criticized for shortcomings, they are lionized (“Newmanized”) into charming caricatures. A book on takeover artists may not be the right place to count the jobs lost and lives destroyed as companies downsize, but the issue remains.

Ideologically, Titans is flawed by idolatry, yet the profiles of the new rich are a valuable document. Like the first two volumes of The Canadian Establishment, this instalment is due to be a major bestseller. And if it leads the masses to ape their new masters, to stand at the gates and gawk at the lives of the spoiled, then that is as it has always been.