In Pamela Fiori’s new book, “In the Spirit of Palm Beach,” she quotes current Town councilman, Bill Diamond, on one of the ways in which the rich of Palm Beach are different from the rest of us.

“Palm Beach is…one of the few places in America where you can not work and not feel guilty about it. There’s no work ethic here,” Diamond told her.

Since work ethics were left up north with winter coats and job-creating, Palm Beach’s leisure class is left with plenty of opportunity to live up to its name on an island Fiori describes as having “a ravishing and unapologetic embarrassment of riches.”

And, love it or despise it, isn’t that exactly why Palm Beach has remained fascinating for 100 years?

Fiori, the former editor of “Town & Country,” breezes through a summary of Palm Beach history with stops in every decade. She introduces readers to storied residents and great estates, illuminated with quotes mined from a variety of sources, including her former magazine and Cleveland Amory’s cheeky 1952 book, “The Last Resorts.”

For example, the plutocrat’s playground of the 1920’s is encapsulated in Amory’s description of Eva Stotesbury, who became an early society queen after commissioning Addison Mizner to build her a lavish 40-room mansion on 42 ocean-to-lake acres.

“On her honeymoon at Palm Beach, she wore so many jewels that she was forced to take along a detective as well as a husband; on a later occasion she did over the entire patio of El Mirasol from midnight to morning while Mr. Stotesbury, who knew nothing about it, peacefully slept.”

But the book’s photos, many rarely seen, are the treasure here.

Evalyn Walsh McLean is shown swatched in lace, with her son and a poodle, in a Palm Beach wheelchair about 1913, two years after she became the last private owner of the 45-carat Hope Diamond. The daughter of an Irish immigrant who struck it big in a Colorado gold mine, she was known as a lavish spender who also owned the 94-carat Star of India.

In 1986, Ivana Trump strikes an imperious pose in Mar-a-Lago’s dining room on one page, while on another, an even haughtier fur-draped Barbara Hutton stares in boredom at a 1940 Everglades Club tennis match.

Lilly Pulitzer, tanned and pretty in Slim Aarons’ 1950’s photos, reprises the runaway popularity of her flowered dresses: “Jackie (Kennedy) wore one of my dresses – it was made from kitchen curtain material – and people went crazy. They took off like zingo. Everybody loved them and I went into the dress business.”

And from 1974, Estee Lauder offers tips on throwing the perfect Palm Beach soiree: “…18 is the perfect number for a dinner party…then I think it’s fun to have a three-piece orchestra for dancing on the patio after coffee and brandy.”

As the photos show, Palm Beach style rarely changes.

Aarons’ 1968 cover photo , of a cocktail-sipping group lounging around a sports car on Lake Trail, could have been taken last week, as an illustration of wealthy WASPS at play.

In 1939, famous beauty Babe Paley strolls Worth Avenue in a contemporary-looking wide-legged pantsuit while Jackie Kennedy leaves a 1961 Good Friday mass in the kind of sheath dress and Jack Rogers sandals seen everyday on young Palm Beach matrons.

Scenes of pool parties through the decades are a fashion time line of bathing suits. In 1968, a socialite couple poses in haute preppy attire with their Rolls Royce in front of the Flagler Museum.

Fiori’s book is the tenth in a series of luxe, hardcover travel guides to aspirational resort towns published by Assouline, including “In the Spirit of Capri” and “In the Spirit of St. Barths,” also written by Fiori.

Although she and her husband have owned a South Ocean Boulevard condo in Palm Beach for six years, she spoke by phone last week from her home in New York.

Palm Beach Post: When did you first start coming down to Palm Beach?

Pamela Fiori: I first came to Palm Beach in the ’70s while I was (the editor) of “Travel & Leisure.” It figured importantly for our readers, but much more so when I moved to “Town & Country.” It really was the playground for the “Town & Country” audience. I usually stayed at The Breakers, which I think is one of the greatest hotels in America.

PBP: Why did you keep the tone of the book decidedly light and upbeat? Unlike recent Palm Beach books, there’s not much about old or new scandals, Bernie Madoff or controversial private club memberships.

PF: I didn’t want the book to drag Palm Beach down. It’s still a gorgeous place, there’s a lot that’s appealing to a lot of people. I didn’t want to scare people off by making them think you had to have a passport to get in.

Today though, there seems to be a loosening up of the social structure, a little more diversity in Palm Beach and certainly, in the areas around it.

Yet, the Everglades Club and the Bath and Tennis Club are still going to be what they always were. I’m careful about saying they have their codes of conduct, to which they’re entitled, and even if a member invites you to join, the chances are slim-to-none that you will get in. Palm Beach built its reputation on exclusivity, after all.

PBP: If you could live in any era in Palm Beach, which would you choose?

PF: I would have liked to have lived in the wild and woolly 1920’s, when you had people really living it up, like Paris Singer. They were all having wild parties, there were no rules and people were having a great time.

But historically, the most interesting era is the beginning of Palm Beach, the early Flagler days, when he had the vision to create this resort at what was the ends of the earth, or at least of civilization. Despite every else’s doubts, he knew this part of Florida could become a place where all these wealthy people from the Northeast would come for pleasure.