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Hello and welcome to Behind the News, my name is Doug Henry.

Two segments today, the historian Patrick Wyman will fill us in on local elites,

people who lord it over their neighbors but whom Metropolitan Leeds don't give a thought to.

And then he and Noyan will talk about queerness, social reproduction, and capitalism.

When we think of the ruling class, we usually think of the denizens of Manhattan or Palo Alto.

But there's an important social stratum, local elites that don't get much attention.

The historian Patrick Wyman wrote an excellent piece about the elite of his hometown, Yakima Washington,

on his sub-stack, Perspectives past present and future last September.

As he put it in that piece, people like the Yakima Gentry exist in smaller cities around the country.

Quote, places where huge numbers of Americans live but which don't figure prominently in the country's popular imagination or its political narratives.

This kind of elites' wealth derives not from salaries but from their ownership of assets.

Close quote.

Last week, the Atlantic magazine posted an adaptation of Wyman's original piece to its website,

which reminded me how impressed I was with the original when I read it months ago.

So I thought he'd make a great interview and I was right.

Patrick Wyman is host to the Tides of History podcast and the author of The Verge.

Reformation Renaissance in 40 years that shook the world, published by 12 books in July.

He has a PhD in history but decided early on that academia was not for him.

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