Social significance is probably not something that any one of its millions of readers has picked up The Carpetbaggers expecting to find; however, in common with many of Robbins's other books, this one fulfills an important social purpose by providing readers with vicarious access to a world of power and yet suggesting that it is not worth the effort necessary for reaching it. Lower-middle-class readers would remain unconvinced by a conventional moralizing that suggested the price was too high because the hero had to lie, cheat, and kill his way to the top. But Robbins's message is more subtle: he takes no moral stand against the lying and the cheating and the killing. In fact he goes out of his way to find contexts in which these can be viewed sympathetically. What member of the lower classes would, for example, begrudge Nevada Smith the opportunity to...