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| The problem with Who's Who and I have thought this ever |
| since, as a child, I scanned the Gs fruitlessly for mention of any |
| Gladwells is that there is no overt logic to the selection |
process. In all likelihood, this is a function of its Englishness. If Who's Who were an American institution, there would be an elaborate, public procedure outlining criteria for inclusion. A select panel would vote, on the third Friday of November or some such preordained date, on a list of potential names. The very rich would try to influence the process by targeting the members of the panel with direct mail. Those who failed to make the grade would sue. It would be impossible to join the cultural elite, in other words, without demonstrating the very grasping, mercenary and indefatigably legalistic qualities that would ordinarily disqualify one from joining the cultural elite. A Who's Who entry for an American is, then, in some sense deeply ironic. A Who's Who entry for the English, by contrast, has the kind of solemnity and weight possible under only the most secretive and arbitrary of systems. On page 794 of the latest, 150th anniversary edition of Who's Who, for example, there is an entry for a certain Andrew Curtis Green, who is described as a farmer and whose...