<DIV>It can feel like we're swimming in a sea of corruption, confused by who exactly is in charge and what role they play. The same influential people reappear time after time in different professional guises, pressing their own agendas in one venue after another. These are the powerful "shadow elite," the main players in a vexing new system of power and influence.<p>In her profoundly original <i>Shadow Elite</i>, award-winning public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine R. Wedel gives us the tools we need to recognize these powerful yet elusive figures and to comprehend the new system. Nothing less than our freedom and our ability to self-govern is at stake.</DIV>