"It Takes one to Know One" is the title of the opening chapter of Joseph Epstein's engaging taxonomy of snobbery. The self-awareness is laudable but also necessary, for it is impossible to write a book about snobs without being one.
Epstein, one of America's best essayists, is a snob of the intellectual variety, which means he's a reverse snob. In other words, he disdains the trendy: "Sometimes all it takes for me to drop an enthusiasm is the knowledge that someone I think commonplace has picked it up." Candor always takes the sting out of snobbery.
In Snobbery (Houghton...