-
Wildland
- The Making of America's Fury
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos
- Length: 17 hrs and 7 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $31.18
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
-
-
AMERICAN ANGER, FEAR, AND FRUSTRATION
- By CHET YARBROUGH on 06-27-14
By: George Packer
-
Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
-
-
Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
-
Lessons from the Edge
- A Memoir
- By: Marie Yovanovitch
- Narrated by: Marie Yovanovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time she became US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch had seen her share of corruption, instability, and tragedy in developing countries. But it came as a shock when, in early 2019, she was recalled from her post after a smear campaign by President Trump’s personal attorney and his associates - men operating outside of normal governmental channels, and apparently motivated by personal gain. Her courageous participation in the subsequent impeachment inquiry earned Yovanovitch the nation’s respect, and her dignified response to the president’s attacks won our hearts.
-
-
Heroic patriot's amazing story
- By Victoria Eriksson on 03-19-22
-
Twilight of Democracy
- The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else.
-
-
Reductive and simplistic
- By Erik C on 08-16-20
By: Anne Applebaum
-
There Is Nothing For You Here
- Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Fiona Hill
- Narrated by: Fiona Hill
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia—and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, as well as her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.
-
-
Excellent book on populism, Putin, Trump and us
- By Erin on 10-08-21
By: Fiona Hill
-
Betrayal
- The Final Act of the Trump Show
- By: Jonathan Karl
- Narrated by: Jonathan Karl
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody is in a better position to tell the story of the shocking final chapter of the Trump show than Jonathan Karl. As the reporter who has known Donald Trump longer than any other White House correspondent, Karl told the story of Trump’s rise in the New York Times best seller Front Row at the Trump Show. Now he tells the story of Trump’s downfall, complete with riveting behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the darkest days in the history of the American presidency.
-
-
A movie plot you know but still manages to impress
- By lorrrraaaaine on 11-18-21
By: Jonathan Karl
-
The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
-
-
AMERICAN ANGER, FEAR, AND FRUSTRATION
- By CHET YARBROUGH on 06-27-14
By: George Packer
-
Why We're Polarized
- By: Ezra Klein
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Why We’re Polarized, Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America’s descent into division and dysfunction. Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump’s rise to the Democratic Party’s leftward shift to the politicization of everyday culture. America is polarized, first and foremost, by identity. Everyone engaged in American politics is engaged, at some level, in identity politics.
-
-
Good as an intro, skip if you’re a wonk
- By Tony on 01-29-20
By: Ezra Klein
-
Lessons from the Edge
- A Memoir
- By: Marie Yovanovitch
- Narrated by: Marie Yovanovitch
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the time she became US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch had seen her share of corruption, instability, and tragedy in developing countries. But it came as a shock when, in early 2019, she was recalled from her post after a smear campaign by President Trump’s personal attorney and his associates - men operating outside of normal governmental channels, and apparently motivated by personal gain. Her courageous participation in the subsequent impeachment inquiry earned Yovanovitch the nation’s respect, and her dignified response to the president’s attacks won our hearts.
-
-
Heroic patriot's amazing story
- By Victoria Eriksson on 03-19-22
-
Twilight of Democracy
- The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 5 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the United States and Britain to continental Europe and beyond, liberal democracy is under siege, while authoritarianism is on the rise. In Twilight of Democracy, Anne Applebaum, an award-winning historian of Soviet atrocities who was one of the first American journalists to raise an alarm about antidemocratic trends in the West, explains the lure of nationalism and autocracy. In this captivating essay, she contends that political systems with radically simple beliefs are inherently appealing, especially when they benefit the loyal to the exclusion of everyone else.
-
-
Reductive and simplistic
- By Erik C on 08-16-20
By: Anne Applebaum
-
There Is Nothing For You Here
- Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century
- By: Fiona Hill
- Narrated by: Fiona Hill
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A celebrated foreign policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia—and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, as well as her unique perspectives as an historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.
-
-
Excellent book on populism, Putin, Trump and us
- By Erin on 10-08-21
By: Fiona Hill
-
Betrayal
- The Final Act of the Trump Show
- By: Jonathan Karl
- Narrated by: Jonathan Karl
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Nobody is in a better position to tell the story of the shocking final chapter of the Trump show than Jonathan Karl. As the reporter who has known Donald Trump longer than any other White House correspondent, Karl told the story of Trump’s rise in the New York Times best seller Front Row at the Trump Show. Now he tells the story of Trump’s downfall, complete with riveting behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the darkest days in the history of the American presidency.
-
-
A movie plot you know but still manages to impress
- By lorrrraaaaine on 11-18-21
By: Jonathan Karl
-
Insurgency
- How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted
- By: Jeremy W. Peters
- Narrated by: Jeremy W. Peters
- Length: 13 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic narrative chronicling the fracturing of the Republican Party, Jeremy Peters’s Insurgency is the story of a party establishment that believed it could control the dark energy it helped foment—right up until it suddenly couldn’t. How, Peters asks, did conservative values that Republicans claimed to cherish, like small government, fiscal responsibility, and morality in public service, get completely eroded as an unshakable faith in Donald Trump grew to define the party?
-
-
Woodward Worthy
- By James Adams on 02-28-22
By: Jeremy W. Peters
-
This Will Not Pass
- Trump, Biden and the Battle for American Democracy
- By: Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This is the authoritative account of an 18-month crisis in American democracy that will be seared into the country’s political memory for decades to come. With stunning, in-the-room detail, New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns show how both our political parties confronted a series of national traumas, including the coronavirus pandemic, the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and the political brinksmanship of President Biden’s first year in the White House.
-
-
Info-audicted loves this book
- By Anonymous User on 05-04-22
By: Jonathan Martin, and others
-
Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
-
-
Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
-
Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
-
-
Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
-
The Steal
- The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It
- By: Mark Bowden, Matthew Teague
- Narrated by: LJ Ganser
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 64 days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states - Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin - Trump’s supporters claimed widespread voter fraud.
-
-
Fascinating local insights
- By CharlieSeymourJr on 01-13-22
By: Mark Bowden, and others
-
Evil Geniuses
- The Unmaking of America: A Recent History
- By: Kurt Andersen
- Narrated by: Kurt Andersen
- Length: 16 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
During the 20th century, America managed to make its economic and social systems both more and more fair and more and more prosperous. A huge, secure, and contented middle class emerged. All boats rose together. But then the New Deal gave way to the Raw Deal. Beginning in the early 1970s, by means of a long war conceived of and executed by a confederacy of big business CEOs, the superrich, and right-wing zealots, the rules and norms that made the American middle class possible were undermined and dismantled.
-
-
So Many Words!
- By Ember Rose Baker on 08-24-20
By: Kurt Andersen
-
Unthinkable
- Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy
- By: Jamie Raskin
- Narrated by: Jamie Raskin
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this searing memoir, Congressman Jamie Raskin tells the story of the 45 days at the start of 2021 that permanently changed his life - and his family’s - as he confronted the painful loss of his son to suicide, lived through the violent insurrection in our nation’s Capitol, and led the impeachment effort to hold President Trump accountable for inciting the political violence. Now for the first time, Congressman Raskin discusses this unimaginable convergence of personal and public trauma.
-
-
This book is a MASTERPIECE
- By Laura M. on 01-07-22
By: Jamie Raskin
-
How Civil Wars Start
- And How to Stop Them
- By: Barbara F. Walter
- Narrated by: Beth Hicks
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Political violence rips apart several towns in southwest Texas. A far-right militia plots to kidnap the governor of Michigan and try her for treason. An armed mob of Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists storms the US Capitol. Are these isolated incidents? Or is this the start of something bigger? Barbara F. Walter has spent her career studying civil conflict in places like Iraq and Sri Lanka, but now she has become increasingly worried about her own country.
-
-
Progressive propoganda piece
- By royal flush on 01-13-22
-
A Promised Land
- By: Barack Obama
- Narrated by: Barack Obama
- Length: 29 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the stirring, highly anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in strikingly personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency - a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
-
-
Color me grateful.
- By Angela on 11-19-20
By: Barack Obama
-
The Right
- The Hundred-Year War for American Conservatism
- By: Matthew Continetti
- Narrated by: Carl Sayles
- Length: 14 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Matthew Continetti gives a sweeping account of movement conservatism’s evolution, from the Progressive Era through the present. He tells the story of how conservatism began as networks of intellectuals, developing and institutionalizing a vision that grew over time, until they began to buckle under new pressures, resembling national populist movements. Drawing out the tensions between the desire for mainstream acceptance and the pull of extremism, Continetti argues that the more one studies conservatism’s past, the more one becomes convinced of its future.
-
-
Authors bias shows
- By Mary Lou Vodar on 04-30-22
-
Ship of Fools
- By: Tucker Carlson
- Narrated by: Tucker Carlson
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The host of Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson Tonight offers a blistering critique of the new American ruling class, the elites of both parties, who have taken over the ship of state, leaving the rest of us, the citizen-passengers, to wonder: How do we put the country back on course?
-
-
Read if you want to hear about how ridiculous the ruling elite are
- By Sadie K on 03-02-19
By: Tucker Carlson
-
Evicted
- Poverty and Profit in the American City
- By: Matthew Desmond
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this brilliant, heartbreaking book, Matthew Desmond takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the $20 a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup after her hours are cut.
-
-
Outstanding and eye-opening
- By serine on 11-29-16
By: Matthew Desmond
Publisher's Summary
This program is read by the author.
"Evan Osnos compassionately shares his extensive research on the crumbling of American democracy, civility, and equality. Listeners join him as he visits three diverse places he has lived: wealthy Greenwich, Connecticut; segregated Chicago; and coal-mining Clarksburg, West Virginia." (AudioFile)
"One of the books of the year.... Wildland by The New Yorker's Evan Osnos draws the backstory to America's rage through deep reporting and 'thousands of hours of conversations' in three places he lived before DC." (Axios)
After a decade abroad, the National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Evan Osnos returns to three places he has lived in the United States - Greenwich, CT; Clarksburg, WV; and Chicago, IL - to illuminate the origins of America’s political fury.
Evan Osnos moved to Washington, DC, in 2013 after a decade away from the United States, first as the Beijing bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune and then as the China correspondent for The New Yorker. While abroad, he often found himself making a case for America, urging the citizens of Egypt, Iraq, or China to trust that even though America had made grave mistakes throughout its history, it aspired to some foundational moral commitments - the rule of law, the power of truth, the right of equal opportunity for all. But when he returned to the United States, he found each of these principles under assault.
In search of an explanation for the crisis that reached an unsettling crescendo in 2020 - a year of pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil - he focused on three places he knew firsthand: Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois. Reported over the course of six years, Wildland follows ordinary individuals as they navigate the varied landscapes of 21st-century America. Through their powerful, often poignant stories, Osnos traces the sources of America’s political dissolution. He finds answers in the rightward shift of the financial elite in Greenwich; in the collapse of social infrastructure and possibility in Clarksburg; and in the compounded effects of segregation and violence in Chicago. The truth about the state of the nation may be found not in the slogans of political leaders but in the intricate details of individual lives, and in the hidden connections between them. As Wildland weaves in and out of these personal stories, events in Washington occasionally intrude, like flames licking up on the horizon.
A dramatic, prescient examination of seismic changes in American politics and culture, Wildland is the story of a crucible, a period bounded by two shocks to America’s psyche, two assaults on the country’s sense of itself: the attacks of September 11th in 2001 and the storming of the US Capitol, on January 6th, 2021. Following the lives of everyday Americans, in three cities, across two decades, Osnos illuminates the country in a startling light. revealing how we lost the moral confidence to see ourselves as larger than the sum of our parts.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Critic Reviews
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2021
L.A. Times Book Prize - Finalist, 2022
"Stellar reporting. ... As an overview of a fractious ideological landscape, this skillful treatment is hard to beat. An elegant survey of the causes and effects of polarization in America." (Kirkus, starred review)
"Incisive. ... An engrossing and revealing look at how deeply connected yet far apart Americans are." (Publishers Weekly)
"Through clear, engrossing writing, [Evan Osnos] gives shape to the past 20 years." (Christopher Borrelli, The Chicago Tribune)
More from the same
Author
Narrator
What listeners say about Wildland
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Eric Taylor
- 09-27-21
More of a painting than analysis
What I felt lacking in this book may be exactly what some will appreciate most. The author uses his unique perspective as a recently returning American from years abroad to paint several vignettes to explain of how far his homeland, by 2013 when he returned, had descended into bitter political division. The writing and performance, both by the author, are excellent as description. The vivid details of many of the characters in these vignettes attest to hours of interviews and patient studies of their lives for which the author is to be commended.
Mr Osnos undoubtedly has a broad base of knowledge of American history based on the many historical facts and references sprinkled throughout the work. However, the work overall doesn’t seem to add to much more than an impressionist’s painting our country’s woefully divided condition.
Full disclosure demands that I admit, I have written this review after skipping several of the later chapters, hoping for a summation in the final 2 chapters which would compel me to go back and reread and pick up the the ones I missed. But in the absence of any conclusions or prescription that seemed to require any supporting justifications, I will leave my bookmark where it is.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 11-02-21
Beautiful, albeit sad, recounting of modern day America
This book is a terrific expose of modern day America. By “profiling” three very different places, Osnos illuminated the systemic fault lines in our society. The way the author weaved in his personal history was masterful and kept me engaged as the story weaved through the past decade of American political history. This book reminded me a lot of George Packer’s The Unwinding. If you liked that book, I recommend this one too. The one downside is the stark reminder that there is perhaps no solution to our problems. Osnos closes with some vague references to our communities and hope in the future; but it is not very concrete. Then again, perhaps there is no concrete solution to our current divisions. Highly recommend this book!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ava
- 11-07-21
Knowing what you are struggling against, helps!
It’s something to hear plainly and with full supporting evidence the things you intrinsically understand must be happening and must have happened, to move us to this point of great discontent in America. I once read interviews of slaves in America where some said they often considered poor whites in the south to be even below them, based on the degraded situation in which poor white families lived. America has had its heel on the neck of blacks and poor whites for most of its existence. For blacks it was never denied, poor whites experiencing the same seem never sure what or whom they were struggling against, that is crazy making.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C. Tilney
- 11-05-21
fantastic
beautifully written
compelling selection of stories to illustrate each point. highly recommend to anyone who wants a richer look at what the hell is going on
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Charles Ryan
- 10-24-21
Cover too many issues. Break into Segments
Good but should have been broken into segments by time, issue location. Your insights are excellent. Well done. Charlie, Chicago
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Arthur Ratliff
- 10-08-21
You can't get more descriptive than this.
This my second book by Evan Osnos. The first was so good that I bought this one on name alone. It did not disappoint. The facts are laid out plain and simple. It should be required reading for all high school and college students.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- lou siegel
- 02-23-22
Relevant information for our time.
The authors insight, research, and presentation are certainly worthy of our time to digest it.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Enthoosed
- 02-14-22
Critical content for every American
If you’re looking for some rhyme or reason as to why the United States has become so polarized, this book is an ABSOLUTE must-read. I’m no stranger to feeling overwhelmed with the direction the U.S. has taken, and frequently wonder how it could ever possibly right itself again… This book has been so enlightening, highlighting the throughlines between past events through to the present day, in the most engaging, humanistic, and fact-based way possible.
I feel better education and actually able to speak on why the divisions in our country run so deep. I honestly wish this was required reading for every American, because at the end of the day, we’re all in a such similar boats (unless you’re a hedge fund manager taking in hundreds of millions of dollars per year, of course). I simply cannot recommend this book enough.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dwayne
- 02-10-22
Best explanation of U.S. political dysfunction
I've read (or listened to) dozens of books over the past few years trying to understand how our political system (and fellow citizens) became so broken. This one combines all those other narratives into one complete story that is compelling, true, and personal enough to follow along and feel like it could be YOUR story too. Most of us already know this story--massive inequality, unresponsive political system, corrosive media environment, etc. When all of these problems go unaddressed by both major political parties and voting citizens start consuming propaganda rather than information, what did we expect would happen? This wildland was primed for a fast moving fire from a single spark.
This book is equally critical of Democrats and Republicans for their various failings, although it does come down harder on the Trump years because...well, you know--truth. This book is appealing to those of us standing squarely in the middle of the political spectrum who have not yet abandoned our ability to think clearly and recognize lies for lies and accept hard truths as needed.
The narrative is driven along by focusing on various places the author has lived. I was initially skeptical of this approach, but it turns out to work perfectly by exposing the contrasting stories of Greenwich hedge fund billionaires, poor West Virginia coal miners, and urban minorities around Chicago. Osnos is a good story teller who weaves all these different parts into an incredibly coherent whole. I find myself disagreeing with parts of even my favorite books, but I couldn't find a single thing to fault in this book.
I first heard about this book in an interview of Evan Osnos with Charlie Sykes on The Bulwark podcast (start listening to it now--it's awesome!) and knew I needed to give it a try. I'm highly critical of everything I read and rarely give out 5's across the board. This one is a 5-star (even though it is read by the author which is usually a mistake authors make--normally it's best to leave it to the professionals to read your work).
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mike Dorning
- 02-02-22
Powerful, Human Stories on What’s Gone Wrong in America
Powerful, human stories of strains pulling America apart in the Trump Era. Author has a smart, sweeping perspective on economic and cultural forces tearing at our society — not least the pivotal role of cynical calculations of financial elite, including his former Greenwich, Conn., neighbors.
The author reads the book himself and does a very good job.