Comparing the modalities and logics of elitist distinction on a planetary scale and through the ages, this work constitutes an absolutely unprecedented sum. This is based on decades of observation in many countries, as well as the consultation of thousands of studies from a dozen disciplines. Over the course of thematic chapters, relating both to revealing bodily attitudes and to distinction through the intermediary of animals, the extent to which the symbolism of eminence can take on varied and sometimes even diametrically opposed forms is underlined. After having published two theoretical works which have been hailed as profoundly renewing the analysis of the subject, Jean-Pascal Daloz offers us here a fascinating empirical synthesis, attaching all the importance they deserve to the cultural divisions between societies.