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Wildland: The Making of America's Fury
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, D.C., in 2013 after a decade away from the United States, first reporting from the Middle East before becoming the Beijing bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune and then 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 twenty-first-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 11 in 2001 and the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Following the lives of everyday Americans in three cities and 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.
Evan Osnos moved to Washington, D.C., in 2013 after a decade away from the United States, first reporting from the Middle East before becoming the Beijing bureau chief at the Chicago Tribune and then 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 twenty-first-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 11 in 2001 and the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Following the lives of everyday Americans in three cities and 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.
465 pages, Hardcover
First published September 14, 2021
About the author
Evan Osnos
15 books305 followersEvan Osnos joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2008. He is a correspondent in Washington, D.C. who writes about politics and foreign affairs. He is the author of "Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, May 2014). Based on eight years of living in Beijing, the book traces the rise of the individual in China, and the clash between aspiration and authoritarianism. He was the China Correspondent at The New Yorker magazine from 2008 to 2013. He is a contributor to This American Life on public radio, and Frontline, the PBS series. Prior to The New Yorker, he worked as the Beijing bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune, where he contributed to a series that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He has received the Asia Society’s Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Journalism on Asia, the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, and a Mirror Award for profile-writing. Before his appointment in China, he worked in the Middle East, reporting mostly from Iraq.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 265 reviews
January 23, 2022
Page 10 (my book)
Eighty years after Franklin Roosevelt decried the temptation of “fear itself”, Americans did not deny their fears; they announced them and acted on them.
“Wildland” is a truly sobering look at the current trajectory of the United States. It does not bode well for the country – and for democracy worldwide.
Evan Osnos, the author, looks at three very different regions – the upper crust in Greenwich, Connecticut, West Virginia coal mining country, and the ghettoes of Chicago.
He describes the tremendous financial growth in Greenwich and the downslide in both West Virginia and urban Chicago. This book is not just about Trump, but about the decay that has taken place in the U.S. in the last fifty years.
There was always a struggle between those who wanted a role for government in people’s lives – and those who did not. In the last fifty years those opposed to government have been winning. The super-capitalists wanted less regulation and they got it – less regulation on the environment which interfered with production output and hindered profits, less taxation, less government involvement in health care and education.
The income gap between white and Black has not improved much – and there are more impoverished people.
Page 6
In 2013, the average white family in Washington was eighty-one times richer than the average Black family.
Page 93 Chicago
In predominantly Black neighborhoods homicide rates were thirteen times higher on average, than in better off white areas.
Page 26
In 1965, the CEO of an average large public company earned about 20 times as much as a frontline worker, by 2019, that figure was 278 times as much.
During the 1970s companies made shareholders (i.e. profits) the centerpiece of their enterprise – not their employees, not the community, and not the environment.
And there are other aspects as well, like the growth of the “crazies”.
Page 15
John Gunther’s book “Inside U.S.A.” on the final page, he recorded his faith in America’s talent for “the rational approach, reason, the meeting of minds in honorable agreement after open argument.”
Page 309 Bill Moyers
“One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal.”
The government is no longer answering to the bulk of the people – it is answering to the super-capitalist. The author describes it best on page 48 – “Between 1941 and 1970, the Senate took only thirty-six votes to break filibusters; in just the two-year period 2009 to 2010, when Mitch McConnell was the Senate minority leader, it took ninety-one. It was a radical break in the nature of representative democracy; senators representing just one-tenth of the American population – in sparsely settled rural states – had the power to block almost any legislation.”
This diminution of government would have started if Barry Goldwater had been elected in 1964 – it did start with Ronald Reagan. The goal of Trump was to decrease further the effectiveness of government in the lives of ordinary Americans – and to replace it with private enterprise.
Page 140
The conservatives succeeded in demonizing government as a concept.
The strong libertarian pull in American culture started to dominate – and its victim was government. Its aim was to dismantle government institutions – rid it of regulations – all in the name of less taxation – primarily for the rich and companies.
Page 179
When Congress took up major health-care reforms, drug companies, insurance, and other powerful interests spent half a billion dollars on lobbying against them. If lobbying failed, Mitch McConnell was ready to use the filibuster.
Page 171
[By the Clinton era] the logic of deregulation had taken on a momentum that crossed party lines.
Page 176
Wealth and winning had been liberated from responsibility.
Page 287 radical self-reliance
Steve Bannon, the campaign chief [for Donald Trump], called it the “deconstruction of the administrative state” the undoing of institutions, regulations, and taxes that he believed constrained American power in the name of a false promise of communitarian good.
And, of course, there is racism – a fundamental part of the culture since the European settlers arrived. It was thought, by some, that with the election of Barack Obama the U.S. was entering a post-racial society – not so. The election of a Black President triggered latent racist and militia groups in the U.S. to mobilize.
Page 268
In the Obama era, gun sales set new records. The demand to use guns anywhere was an essential part of modern white-identity politics.
Perhaps one glaringly good example of the lack of mutual help is the contrast between the spirit of sacrifice that existed during World War II and the lack of it after 9/11. It was largely the poor and even recent migrants who enlisted to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq – but for most others it was just business as usual.
An interesting statistic, which is likely behind the increase in voting restrictions being put into place by several states –
Page 161
By 2018, the median age of white Americans would be fifty-eight, for Asian Americans that figure was twenty-nine, and for Latinos it was eleven.
This book does not leave one hopeful for the future of democracy in the United States. The system is dysfunctional. The Senate and Congress are beholden to lobbyists – and they have packed the Supreme Court with religious conservatives and with those favourable to deregulation – which translates to more profits for big business. Not much is being done by government (or what is left of it) to quell the flow of erroneous news and outrageous conspiracy theories.
Page 304
American political culture was bounded by a contest between reason and violence – a seesawing battle that continues to this day, between the aspiration to persuade fellow citizens to accept your views and the raw instinct to force them to comply.
Page 315 Steve Bannon
“The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
Page 410- 411 on Biden’s Inaugural speech
He listed some basic values: “Opportunity. Security. Liberty. Dignity. Respect. Honor. And yes the truth”… But under the circumstances, the list stood out more for how these definitions had become contested or hollow.
This book is a devastating examination of how the U.S. government has deteriorated over decades, and is no longer able to be responsive to the bulk of its citizens.
Eighty years after Franklin Roosevelt decried the temptation of “fear itself”, Americans did not deny their fears; they announced them and acted on them.
“Wildland” is a truly sobering look at the current trajectory of the United States. It does not bode well for the country – and for democracy worldwide.
Evan Osnos, the author, looks at three very different regions – the upper crust in Greenwich, Connecticut, West Virginia coal mining country, and the ghettoes of Chicago.
He describes the tremendous financial growth in Greenwich and the downslide in both West Virginia and urban Chicago. This book is not just about Trump, but about the decay that has taken place in the U.S. in the last fifty years.
There was always a struggle between those who wanted a role for government in people’s lives – and those who did not. In the last fifty years those opposed to government have been winning. The super-capitalists wanted less regulation and they got it – less regulation on the environment which interfered with production output and hindered profits, less taxation, less government involvement in health care and education.
The income gap between white and Black has not improved much – and there are more impoverished people.
Page 6
In 2013, the average white family in Washington was eighty-one times richer than the average Black family.
Page 93 Chicago
In predominantly Black neighborhoods homicide rates were thirteen times higher on average, than in better off white areas.
Page 26
In 1965, the CEO of an average large public company earned about 20 times as much as a frontline worker, by 2019, that figure was 278 times as much.
During the 1970s companies made shareholders (i.e. profits) the centerpiece of their enterprise – not their employees, not the community, and not the environment.
And there are other aspects as well, like the growth of the “crazies”.
Page 15
John Gunther’s book “Inside U.S.A.” on the final page, he recorded his faith in America’s talent for “the rational approach, reason, the meeting of minds in honorable agreement after open argument.”
Page 309 Bill Moyers
“One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal.”
The government is no longer answering to the bulk of the people – it is answering to the super-capitalist. The author describes it best on page 48 – “Between 1941 and 1970, the Senate took only thirty-six votes to break filibusters; in just the two-year period 2009 to 2010, when Mitch McConnell was the Senate minority leader, it took ninety-one. It was a radical break in the nature of representative democracy; senators representing just one-tenth of the American population – in sparsely settled rural states – had the power to block almost any legislation.”
This diminution of government would have started if Barry Goldwater had been elected in 1964 – it did start with Ronald Reagan. The goal of Trump was to decrease further the effectiveness of government in the lives of ordinary Americans – and to replace it with private enterprise.
Page 140
The conservatives succeeded in demonizing government as a concept.
The strong libertarian pull in American culture started to dominate – and its victim was government. Its aim was to dismantle government institutions – rid it of regulations – all in the name of less taxation – primarily for the rich and companies.
Page 179
When Congress took up major health-care reforms, drug companies, insurance, and other powerful interests spent half a billion dollars on lobbying against them. If lobbying failed, Mitch McConnell was ready to use the filibuster.
Page 171
[By the Clinton era] the logic of deregulation had taken on a momentum that crossed party lines.
Page 176
Wealth and winning had been liberated from responsibility.
Page 287 radical self-reliance
Steve Bannon, the campaign chief [for Donald Trump], called it the “deconstruction of the administrative state” the undoing of institutions, regulations, and taxes that he believed constrained American power in the name of a false promise of communitarian good.
And, of course, there is racism – a fundamental part of the culture since the European settlers arrived. It was thought, by some, that with the election of Barack Obama the U.S. was entering a post-racial society – not so. The election of a Black President triggered latent racist and militia groups in the U.S. to mobilize.
Page 268
In the Obama era, gun sales set new records. The demand to use guns anywhere was an essential part of modern white-identity politics.
Perhaps one glaringly good example of the lack of mutual help is the contrast between the spirit of sacrifice that existed during World War II and the lack of it after 9/11. It was largely the poor and even recent migrants who enlisted to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq – but for most others it was just business as usual.
An interesting statistic, which is likely behind the increase in voting restrictions being put into place by several states –
Page 161
By 2018, the median age of white Americans would be fifty-eight, for Asian Americans that figure was twenty-nine, and for Latinos it was eleven.
This book does not leave one hopeful for the future of democracy in the United States. The system is dysfunctional. The Senate and Congress are beholden to lobbyists – and they have packed the Supreme Court with religious conservatives and with those favourable to deregulation – which translates to more profits for big business. Not much is being done by government (or what is left of it) to quell the flow of erroneous news and outrageous conspiracy theories.
Page 304
American political culture was bounded by a contest between reason and violence – a seesawing battle that continues to this day, between the aspiration to persuade fellow citizens to accept your views and the raw instinct to force them to comply.
Page 315 Steve Bannon
“The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
Page 410- 411 on Biden’s Inaugural speech
He listed some basic values: “Opportunity. Security. Liberty. Dignity. Respect. Honor. And yes the truth”… But under the circumstances, the list stood out more for how these definitions had become contested or hollow.
This book is a devastating examination of how the U.S. government has deteriorated over decades, and is no longer able to be responsive to the bulk of its citizens.
October 1, 2021
Between September 11, 2001 and January 6, 2021 “is a period in which Americans lost their vision for the common good, the capacity to see the union as larger than the sum of its parts. A century and a half after the Civil War, America was again a cloven nation. It’s stability was foundering on fundamental tensions over the balance between individual freedom and the protection of others, over the reckoning with injustice, and over a basic test of any political society: Whose life matters?”
A lot of this book focuses on three locations and the author conducted extensive interviews there - Clarksburg, West Virginia, Chicago, Illinois and Greenwich, Connecticut. The rest of the book traces political, social and economic developments that have contributed to the current divisive situation.
I want something to help me understand why people can’t see beyond themselves to further goals that advance the common good. John Kenneth Galbraith referred to modern conservatism as “the search for a truly superior moral justification for selfishness.” This book does a pretty good job of demonstrating that everyone in the country seems to be a combination of angry, frightened and disaffected. It’s a depressing picture and unfortunately the author doesn’t offer any guidance for a way out.
During the 2016 election Trump hired an operative to cull right wing media to determine the themes that would lure the missing white voters back to the Republicans: “xenophobia, conspiracy, racism, anti-government fervor and religious fundamentalism”. At that time, Linsey Graham (now the world class ass kisser) accurately called him a “race-baiting, xenophobic bigot”. Trump rode that meanspirited horse to victory. He got a frightening number of votes, and he got even more in the 2020 election. The book is interesting, but it’s a really sad story.
I listened to the audiobook and the author did a good job narrating his book. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
A lot of this book focuses on three locations and the author conducted extensive interviews there - Clarksburg, West Virginia, Chicago, Illinois and Greenwich, Connecticut. The rest of the book traces political, social and economic developments that have contributed to the current divisive situation.
I want something to help me understand why people can’t see beyond themselves to further goals that advance the common good. John Kenneth Galbraith referred to modern conservatism as “the search for a truly superior moral justification for selfishness.” This book does a pretty good job of demonstrating that everyone in the country seems to be a combination of angry, frightened and disaffected. It’s a depressing picture and unfortunately the author doesn’t offer any guidance for a way out.
During the 2016 election Trump hired an operative to cull right wing media to determine the themes that would lure the missing white voters back to the Republicans: “xenophobia, conspiracy, racism, anti-government fervor and religious fundamentalism”. At that time, Linsey Graham (now the world class ass kisser) accurately called him a “race-baiting, xenophobic bigot”. Trump rode that meanspirited horse to victory. He got a frightening number of votes, and he got even more in the 2020 election. The book is interesting, but it’s a really sad story.
I listened to the audiobook and the author did a good job narrating his book. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
August 19, 2021
This is a fascinating read by Evan Osnos, journalist at the New Yorker, who went to work in the Middle East and China, after 9/11, before returning to Washington in 2013, newly married and ready to rediscover his country. He had spent time while away from the US defending his homeland, but, on return, was confronted by changes. This then is the story of a country, and a time, bounded by 9/11 and attack on the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021.
Osnos uses his own family history to good effect, exploring three different locations important to him and contrasting the lives of the descendants of a man who committed a violent crime on his great-grandfather, with those charged with such assaults today. This enables the author to bring a personal feel to the current injustices in the criminal justice system and to explore themes such as race, inequality and the polarisation of wealth and ideology.
Of course, it is impossible to tell the stories of those years without telling the story of Trump. While working away from the States, Osnos had felt that his country stood for the rule of law, the force of truth and the right to pursue a better life. On his return, it seemed these certainties were under threat. From the popularity of Fox News to the lack of trust in the government, the influence of wealth in politics, a press under attack and – of course, Trump’s ability to appeal to those who felt resentful, neglected, and misused. A base of supporters who were ready to listen and a message which matched the mood; ugly, violent, distrustful…. A mob ready to follow the words of a man who threw out mindless soundbites and encouraged to act without thinking about the implications of what they were doing.
This doesn’t have much in the way of answers, but it may help you understand how, and why, America is currently so polarised and divided. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
Osnos uses his own family history to good effect, exploring three different locations important to him and contrasting the lives of the descendants of a man who committed a violent crime on his great-grandfather, with those charged with such assaults today. This enables the author to bring a personal feel to the current injustices in the criminal justice system and to explore themes such as race, inequality and the polarisation of wealth and ideology.
Of course, it is impossible to tell the stories of those years without telling the story of Trump. While working away from the States, Osnos had felt that his country stood for the rule of law, the force of truth and the right to pursue a better life. On his return, it seemed these certainties were under threat. From the popularity of Fox News to the lack of trust in the government, the influence of wealth in politics, a press under attack and – of course, Trump’s ability to appeal to those who felt resentful, neglected, and misused. A base of supporters who were ready to listen and a message which matched the mood; ugly, violent, distrustful…. A mob ready to follow the words of a man who threw out mindless soundbites and encouraged to act without thinking about the implications of what they were doing.
This doesn’t have much in the way of answers, but it may help you understand how, and why, America is currently so polarised and divided. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
December 8, 2022
Americans have been fighting each other regionally and philosophically since 1776. I don't know if it's because I'm living in this current climate of hate but recent events seem especially bad compared to the past. I read this book trying to understand why this is happening now. I've been reading about the rise of the Tea Party and the election of Donald Trump for a couple of years. I think this is the best book I've read on the subject so far. I'll probably be reading more books of this type. I'm not satisfied I've learned enough of the history leading up to this yet.
Democracy in Ancient Greece only lasted two centuries. The Ancient Roman republic almost 5 centuries. America's democracy/republic has now lasted 2-1/2 centuries. I wonder where we're headed?
I like the author's quasi hopeful quote he included in this book. It was said by Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward describing the Civil War: "There was always just enough virtue in this republic to save it; sometimes none to spare."
Democracy in Ancient Greece only lasted two centuries. The Ancient Roman republic almost 5 centuries. America's democracy/republic has now lasted 2-1/2 centuries. I wonder where we're headed?
I like the author's quasi hopeful quote he included in this book. It was said by Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state, William Seward describing the Civil War: "There was always just enough virtue in this republic to save it; sometimes none to spare."
December 28, 2021
This is excellent reporting as per usual for Osnos. He asks the right questions and I think goes to the right places--to go to Greenwich Connecticut to understand Trump is the reason he's one of the most insightful writers of our current moment. The nugget that stood out to me from the end was when he interviewed the insurrectionists at the march on the capitol and the one thing that unified many of them was that this was most of their first times at the capitol! The book also does a fine balance of understanding why people were drawn to Trump without giving them an excuse. This is why Greenwich is perfect--a bunch of rich assholes in private equity doing some criminal-level stuff just wanted to keep making and keeping all their ill-gotten gains.
February 13, 2022
I’m old enough to have lived through most of this gloom and doom in the U.S., so I found Evan Osnos’ recounting of these events (spiraling hedge funds, S&L crisis, wildfires, trumpisms, Covid, opioid epidemic) unstimulating. I was scratching my head as he laments the dwindling number of newspaper readers (he’s a news reporter) and then disses the internet in spite of it’s global reach with an infinite number of news web sites and discussions of such.
His data has been documented but his conclusions have not. He proposes that the good ‘ol days of the 20th century were a better time. For instance, polls find that “in 1964, 77% of Americans had said they generally trusted the government; by 2014, that figure had collapsed to 18%”. I don’t find this as a harbinger of decay, as he does, but an awakening about political power and motivation. We are no longer spoon fed news but are free to research stories on-line.
I read to 30% then jumped to the last 3 chapters but it was more of the same. The information about hedge fund managers and their community in Greenwich, Connecticut, super PAC’S, and the “all-about-winning” Mitch McConnell, was enlightening. This doesn’t hold a candle to Osnos’ other book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.
His data has been documented but his conclusions have not. He proposes that the good ‘ol days of the 20th century were a better time. For instance, polls find that “in 1964, 77% of Americans had said they generally trusted the government; by 2014, that figure had collapsed to 18%”. I don’t find this as a harbinger of decay, as he does, but an awakening about political power and motivation. We are no longer spoon fed news but are free to research stories on-line.
I read to 30% then jumped to the last 3 chapters but it was more of the same. The information about hedge fund managers and their community in Greenwich, Connecticut, super PAC’S, and the “all-about-winning” Mitch McConnell, was enlightening. This doesn’t hold a candle to Osnos’ other book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.
October 26, 2021
Immediately after Donald Trump got elected in 2016, friends from other countries like Mexico, Venezuela, or Spain asked me: How did this happen? How could Americans vote for such a thuggish clown?
I never developed a succinct answer from the many factors that put Trump in the White House:
• working-class white backlash to Obama and the related fear in White America to the browning of the nation;
• flaccid economies in former factory towns the created American’s first modern generation that wasn’t going to live better than its parents;
• the mendacity of conservative media (led by Murdoch and Fox), the death spiral of local news reporting, and the viral compression of the public attention span by social media;
• the greed of wealthier Republicans who saw Trump for what he was but bet (correctly) on his willingness to enrich them further;
• and the cowardly moderate GOP pols who once they sniffed the direction of their base’s wind abandoned what few principles they had in favor of self-preservation.
In other words, the short answer to Why Trump? was this: Race, fear, resentment, greed, media, and raw politics.
Evan Osnos, a writer for The New Yorker, adds flesh to this skeletal response in Wildland, The Making of America’s Fury, and produces an explanatory body of highly-readable recent history that creates context for America’s current divisive tumble through the backwash of Trump and Covid.
As a mechanism, Osnos reports on the rise, the fall, and the stagnation of three segments of U.S. society – the Golden Triangle of Greenwich, Conn., five square miles “that represented the highest concentration wealth in America;” Clarksburg, West Virginia, gateway to coal country, where its once Democratic voters, devasted by lack of work and plagued by opiate addiction, fell sway to the empty promises of Trump; and Chicago – Mud City – where the poorest black neighborhoods were stuck in a punishing bog of violence and poverty.
Osnos peers in between the cracks of America’s disparities – the rich and the poor, the white and the black, those who had lost hope and those who never had it – and sees running hot beneath them, like magma below a steaming lava field, the destructive flames that are consuming the American ideal.
Like all reporters, Osnos is drawn to statistics, and the book is rich with numbers that shock:
• Nearly one third of Black men had entered the criminal justice system; between 1973 and 2020.
• Between 2005 and 2020, more than 2100 American newspapers closed down.
• Between 1947 and 1979, the pay of the average American worker grew by 100 percent. … In the next three decades, from 1979 to 2009, the average worker’s pay rose by just 8 percent.
• About 40,000 people held $1 of every $17 earned in America, the highest share since such data was first collected in 1913.
Thankfully, Osnos narrates as well as he gathers facts. He weaves throughout the book of stories of hedge fund managers, small-town newspaper editors, black community organizers, convicted felons attempting to turn around their lives, and political operatives of various stripes, each evidence, by their rise, their fall or their lack of movement, of the shifting tectonics of American life.
The book divides into two overlapping parts: the first about the post-World War II history leading up to the arrival of Trump; and the second about Trump’s campaign, presidency, and handling of the Covid pandemic. The first fascinated me because either through ignorance or faulty memory I’d lacked the historical framework to understand Trump; the second less so because, truthfully, I lived through Trump and Covid and didn’t want to dive into it again.
Still, I recommend the book. It doesn’t provide a succinct answer to Why Trump?, but it does go a long way to helping understand the longer one.
I never developed a succinct answer from the many factors that put Trump in the White House:
• working-class white backlash to Obama and the related fear in White America to the browning of the nation;
• flaccid economies in former factory towns the created American’s first modern generation that wasn’t going to live better than its parents;
• the mendacity of conservative media (led by Murdoch and Fox), the death spiral of local news reporting, and the viral compression of the public attention span by social media;
• the greed of wealthier Republicans who saw Trump for what he was but bet (correctly) on his willingness to enrich them further;
• and the cowardly moderate GOP pols who once they sniffed the direction of their base’s wind abandoned what few principles they had in favor of self-preservation.
In other words, the short answer to Why Trump? was this: Race, fear, resentment, greed, media, and raw politics.
Evan Osnos, a writer for The New Yorker, adds flesh to this skeletal response in Wildland, The Making of America’s Fury, and produces an explanatory body of highly-readable recent history that creates context for America’s current divisive tumble through the backwash of Trump and Covid.
As a mechanism, Osnos reports on the rise, the fall, and the stagnation of three segments of U.S. society – the Golden Triangle of Greenwich, Conn., five square miles “that represented the highest concentration wealth in America;” Clarksburg, West Virginia, gateway to coal country, where its once Democratic voters, devasted by lack of work and plagued by opiate addiction, fell sway to the empty promises of Trump; and Chicago – Mud City – where the poorest black neighborhoods were stuck in a punishing bog of violence and poverty.
Osnos peers in between the cracks of America’s disparities – the rich and the poor, the white and the black, those who had lost hope and those who never had it – and sees running hot beneath them, like magma below a steaming lava field, the destructive flames that are consuming the American ideal.
Like all reporters, Osnos is drawn to statistics, and the book is rich with numbers that shock:
• Nearly one third of Black men had entered the criminal justice system; between 1973 and 2020.
• Between 2005 and 2020, more than 2100 American newspapers closed down.
• Between 1947 and 1979, the pay of the average American worker grew by 100 percent. … In the next three decades, from 1979 to 2009, the average worker’s pay rose by just 8 percent.
• About 40,000 people held $1 of every $17 earned in America, the highest share since such data was first collected in 1913.
Thankfully, Osnos narrates as well as he gathers facts. He weaves throughout the book of stories of hedge fund managers, small-town newspaper editors, black community organizers, convicted felons attempting to turn around their lives, and political operatives of various stripes, each evidence, by their rise, their fall or their lack of movement, of the shifting tectonics of American life.
The book divides into two overlapping parts: the first about the post-World War II history leading up to the arrival of Trump; and the second about Trump’s campaign, presidency, and handling of the Covid pandemic. The first fascinated me because either through ignorance or faulty memory I’d lacked the historical framework to understand Trump; the second less so because, truthfully, I lived through Trump and Covid and didn’t want to dive into it again.
Still, I recommend the book. It doesn’t provide a succinct answer to Why Trump?, but it does go a long way to helping understand the longer one.
Read
July 8, 2021Read The Unwinding by George Packer first then this. I loved both. Admittedly, this book speaks to my preoccupation with the grand erosion of the American project, a rubber band that remains intact but incredibly stretched. Osnos's storytelling is addictive. He examines three locales he previously lived in -- Chicago, Greenwich, Connecticut, and Harrison County, West Virginia -- to illustrate how America's institutions have failed its most vulnerable people to the benefit, more often than not, of its wealthiest and most powerful. Technology (e.g. social media and assault rifles) has pushed our issues to extremes. As the focus of our consciousness has shifted from local to national politics, our relationship to our neighbors has all but disappeared. We are left inside a violent whirlpool, divided into friends and adversaries, with little emphasis on saving anyone but those who we've deemed to be on our side. How does our time in the whirlpool end? Osnos avoids offering false hope. He doesn't indulge easy cynicism... but he also doesn't suggest that peace is on the horizon. It's difficult, if not impossible, to see our current trends changing course.
September 12, 2021
"There was always just enough virtue in this republic to save it; sometimes none to spare."
I cannot shake how deeply illuminating and unsettling this book was for me. "Wildland" provides the context for the past 20 years of political undoing in America--from 9/11 to the Jan. 6th Capitol insurrection--and, as uncomfortable as it was to read, the insights within these pages are indispensable.
Evan Osnos returned to the US after living nearly a decade abroad in China. The catalyst for this book are the seismic rifts in American politics he noticed once he settled in Washington, D.C. While there are many anecdotes and news pieces from across the country, the book is based in Osnos's connections to three American cities: Chicago, IL; Clarksburg, WV; and Greenwich, CT. These are the roots of Osnos's narrative, and from these three distinct vantage points, we witness a similar unraveling of American culture, community, and politics.
I was most impressed by the author's ability to provide tell-tale stories that both capture the humanity of their subjects while also eliciting a deep sense of empathy and shared anguish among them, too. Our struggles are different in each community: Hedge funders and financiers must contend with their shallow lives and moral erosions; disaffected coal miners must try to comprehend a state that puts money and politics above its own competence and constituents; and segregated residents must try to envision a life for themselves beyond the hood, even as every socio-economic and political force tries to prevent them from doing so.
As many times as I wanted to look away from the reality this book was bringing to my attention, I kept realizing that it was that same willed ignorance to avoid our common anguish that has pushed so many people in this country to its political extremes. This book will leave you tired and speechless; but, if it is effective in its message to fight this lethargic status quo by generating greater political activity within our local communities, then it can be inspiring, too.
A truly eye-opening, disheartening, and yet quietly inspiring book.
I cannot shake how deeply illuminating and unsettling this book was for me. "Wildland" provides the context for the past 20 years of political undoing in America--from 9/11 to the Jan. 6th Capitol insurrection--and, as uncomfortable as it was to read, the insights within these pages are indispensable.
Evan Osnos returned to the US after living nearly a decade abroad in China. The catalyst for this book are the seismic rifts in American politics he noticed once he settled in Washington, D.C. While there are many anecdotes and news pieces from across the country, the book is based in Osnos's connections to three American cities: Chicago, IL; Clarksburg, WV; and Greenwich, CT. These are the roots of Osnos's narrative, and from these three distinct vantage points, we witness a similar unraveling of American culture, community, and politics.
I was most impressed by the author's ability to provide tell-tale stories that both capture the humanity of their subjects while also eliciting a deep sense of empathy and shared anguish among them, too. Our struggles are different in each community: Hedge funders and financiers must contend with their shallow lives and moral erosions; disaffected coal miners must try to comprehend a state that puts money and politics above its own competence and constituents; and segregated residents must try to envision a life for themselves beyond the hood, even as every socio-economic and political force tries to prevent them from doing so.
As many times as I wanted to look away from the reality this book was bringing to my attention, I kept realizing that it was that same willed ignorance to avoid our common anguish that has pushed so many people in this country to its political extremes. This book will leave you tired and speechless; but, if it is effective in its message to fight this lethargic status quo by generating greater political activity within our local communities, then it can be inspiring, too.
A truly eye-opening, disheartening, and yet quietly inspiring book.
October 5, 2021
There is some good stuff in here. Some of the personal stories are interesting. The correlation of the demise of local news to the anger more people feel as they all focus on the same national stories makes sense. Having said that, I was looking for a balanced view of what is driving fury. This is not that at all. This is more a narrative of the progressive left about what is wrong with America supported by ignoring any data that does not support this view. I really don’t care for echo chamber books of the left or right, making this overall not an informing read.
Want to read
September 14, 2021Ongoing read...much to digest.
January 7, 2022
As Billy Holiday once sang:
"Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news..."
"Them that's got shall get
Them that's not shall lose
So the Bible said and it still is news..."
May 12, 2023
A wildly disappointing fumble on the journalism front. Osnos hopes to pinpoint the source of anger that has fueled right-wingers -- in particular, during the last seven years. But he ultimately doesn't tell us much that we don't already know. The clunky first-person asides also don't help. There are some interesting glimpses of West Virginia life, but, just when Osnos comes closer to a point of depth, he has this incredibly annoying tendency to backtrack and to try to pick up another thread. Your mileage will vary. This book drastically needed an editor. Because while there are a number of useful references, this is ultimately a muddled mess that doesn't really answer the thesis.
August 10, 2021
Since the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, we are awash in a tidal wave of books from political insiders and pundits, making it ever more difficult to choose a book or two to help us understand how America became so dangerous and divided. Former foreign correspondent and a Pulitzer-Prize-winning investigative reporter, Evan Osnos, now based in Washington, D.C., provides a unique, startling, eye-opening look at the forces that have brought us to this precipice. His is the book you should read for a strong grasp of the three main issues that throughout our history have driven the divide that has only grown wider and deeper today: income inequality, uneven health-care access, and racism.
From 2014 up through April 2021, Osnos traveled to three representative states to interview a sampling of nineteen individuals from three cities he himself has lived and worked in: Clarksburg, West Virginia, a proud coal-mining town in Appalachia with a storied history now marred by extreme poverty and opioid addiction; Chicago, where gun crimes are rampant and segregation is pronounced, despite having given rise to our nation’s first black President; and Greenwich, Connecticut, the “hedge fund capital of the world” and the epitome of income extremes. Through a vivid literary journalistic style, the author weaves the threads of these individuals’ lives into the cloth of historical events to show how the disruptions, dysfunctions, and displacements extant in America today are the “culmination of forces that had been gathering for decades.”
The theme of justice lies at the heart of this book. In an interesting twist, Osnos looks back at a violent assault that nearly took the life of his great-grandfather on the South Side of Chicago in the early 1900s and contrasts it with recent crimes by minorities and what becomes of their perpetrators. He seeks out the descendants of the white man who assaulted his great-grandfather to learn how they fared and starkly contrasts their lives with those that typify members from the minority community who commit crimes and their kin. It’s as remarkable and damning a portrait of disparity and whose lives matter most to society as any ever written.
The book’s ending seems at first disappointing and unsatisfying. But as one ponders why such a meticulous, skilled reporter would leave loose ends, it becomes clear that he intends for the story to dangle, as it were, because the saga continues, and entrenched problems that place our democracy in a precarious state remain unresolved…waiting to see who or what will fill the divide.
This review is based on an electronic galley provided for free by the publisher.
From 2014 up through April 2021, Osnos traveled to three representative states to interview a sampling of nineteen individuals from three cities he himself has lived and worked in: Clarksburg, West Virginia, a proud coal-mining town in Appalachia with a storied history now marred by extreme poverty and opioid addiction; Chicago, where gun crimes are rampant and segregation is pronounced, despite having given rise to our nation’s first black President; and Greenwich, Connecticut, the “hedge fund capital of the world” and the epitome of income extremes. Through a vivid literary journalistic style, the author weaves the threads of these individuals’ lives into the cloth of historical events to show how the disruptions, dysfunctions, and displacements extant in America today are the “culmination of forces that had been gathering for decades.”
The theme of justice lies at the heart of this book. In an interesting twist, Osnos looks back at a violent assault that nearly took the life of his great-grandfather on the South Side of Chicago in the early 1900s and contrasts it with recent crimes by minorities and what becomes of their perpetrators. He seeks out the descendants of the white man who assaulted his great-grandfather to learn how they fared and starkly contrasts their lives with those that typify members from the minority community who commit crimes and their kin. It’s as remarkable and damning a portrait of disparity and whose lives matter most to society as any ever written.
The book’s ending seems at first disappointing and unsatisfying. But as one ponders why such a meticulous, skilled reporter would leave loose ends, it becomes clear that he intends for the story to dangle, as it were, because the saga continues, and entrenched problems that place our democracy in a precarious state remain unresolved…waiting to see who or what will fill the divide.
This review is based on an electronic galley provided for free by the publisher.
July 16, 2023
Eloquent and well structured, this book convincingly describes the path to the extreme polarization we find in American politics and economics today. Highly recommended.
June 26, 2021
Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. The author is one of my favorite writers at The New Yorker and I remember forwarding an article of his that showed a group of people from Greenwich, Connecticut, (one of the richest areas in America thanks to so many people who work at hedge funds living there) deciding early on that they want to actively back Trump for president. I was thrilled when I learned that this was actually going to be part of a larger book about the growing unease and anger building across America. The author moves to Washington DC after working overseas for years and starts to study three areas: Chicago, where his family is from, Greenwich, where he grew up and West Virginia where he had his first job at a newspaper in Clarksburg. Through these three areas, their recent history to the present, we see how America has changed in its job and values and so much more. A tremendous look at how we got to our fractured political present.
December 17, 2022
Smart, well-written, historically informed, and filled with fascinating stories about the past and present, the book nevertheless fails to formulate any particularly new or interesting thesis about America’s current political or cultural predicament or future course of development.
January 31, 2022
I don’t really see the point of why this was written, it was just a long retelling of events, most of which I lived through and have recent memories of, and zero analysis.
September 17, 2022
‘This is the story of a crucible, a period bounded by two assaults on the country’s sense of itself: the attack on New York and Washington, on September 11, 2001, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol, on January 6, 2021.’
To tell this story, Mr Osnos travels to three of the places in America in which he has lived: Greenwich, Connecticut; Chicago; and Clarksburg, West Virginia. He writes about subjects including the decline of local newspapers, the cost of wars, the excess at the top, and the failure to protect those in need. He writes that three men (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos) ‘have more wealth than the entire bottom half of the US population combined’. He writes that CEO salaries, which were once 20 times those of a frontline worker in 1965, had spiralled to 278 times that of a frontline worker in 2019. But these statistics are just part of the story. What brings this account to life is the stories of individuals: those in coal mining communities with health issues; those who lost their homes during the subprime catastrophe; and the soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress.
The stories from West Virginia really opened my eyes. Consider this: a West Virginia think tank made a moving argument against mine-safety regulations – ‘Improved safety conditions result in lower money wages for workers’ – then asked, ‘Are workers really better off being safer but making less income?’ Seriously?
‘The fault lines in America’s political coherence, which had been expanding for years, broke wide open.’
Reading this book gives me some understanding as to how America is so polarised and divided, and how this enabled the rise of Donald Trump. When so few hold so much power and can invest obscene amounts of money to increase that power, when their power enables them to destroy the earth and corrupt democracy, then it is hardly surprising that so many are disadvantaged. Can the damage be undone?
Thought-provoking and depressing.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
To tell this story, Mr Osnos travels to three of the places in America in which he has lived: Greenwich, Connecticut; Chicago; and Clarksburg, West Virginia. He writes about subjects including the decline of local newspapers, the cost of wars, the excess at the top, and the failure to protect those in need. He writes that three men (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos) ‘have more wealth than the entire bottom half of the US population combined’. He writes that CEO salaries, which were once 20 times those of a frontline worker in 1965, had spiralled to 278 times that of a frontline worker in 2019. But these statistics are just part of the story. What brings this account to life is the stories of individuals: those in coal mining communities with health issues; those who lost their homes during the subprime catastrophe; and the soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress.
The stories from West Virginia really opened my eyes. Consider this: a West Virginia think tank made a moving argument against mine-safety regulations – ‘Improved safety conditions result in lower money wages for workers’ – then asked, ‘Are workers really better off being safer but making less income?’ Seriously?
‘The fault lines in America’s political coherence, which had been expanding for years, broke wide open.’
Reading this book gives me some understanding as to how America is so polarised and divided, and how this enabled the rise of Donald Trump. When so few hold so much power and can invest obscene amounts of money to increase that power, when their power enables them to destroy the earth and corrupt democracy, then it is hardly surprising that so many are disadvantaged. Can the damage be undone?
Thought-provoking and depressing.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 5, 2023
Another book about the unwinding of America, though from a pretty refreshing perspective. So many of these stories moved/horrified me I had to sit whomever happened to be beside me down and make them listen. An account of the selfish disregard for life held by those in power. Horrible things can happen to and can be seemingly wrought by otherwise good people in America, all because the system has failed them again and again in so many ways. The most memorable incident for me was about the veteran who didn't get the support he needed upon his return, suffering from PTSD, unable to get a job, is on a cocktail of medication/drugs, unwittingly shoots and kills a father and son duo doing their morning rounds delivering the paper. So tragic on every account but whose fault is it? This is what America looks like now. It seems to me like everyone but the super rich are suffering. If you're rich, America will afford you even more. If you're poor, your chances are worse than a coin toss, forget the American Dream.
Couple of quotes I highlighted:
"Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."
"As George Bernard Shaw put it in 1922, a man snatches bread "from the baker's counter" and goes to jail; but if he "snatches bread from the table of hundreds of widows and orphans and similar credulous souls ... he is run into Parliament"
"Growing up in Auburn Gresham, in other words, was a preexisting condition ... Research showed that, as early as preschool, an atmosphere of danger imposed a level of background stress that hampered verbal development by the equivalent of a full year of schooling"
"At Wells Fargo, which used similar policies, internal documents revealed that loan officers had referred to subprime mortgages as "ghetto loans" and to Black borrowers as "mud people""
""Thank you for your service." To those who did the fighting, Americans effectively offered "thoughts and prayers" and not much else ... they offered thoughts and prayers, but they had been asked to give nothing of themselves"
"Poverty can be as much about power as it is about possessions; they hadn't felt poor until someone came along and showed them how little power they really had."
Couple of quotes I highlighted:
"Right now we have a society that talks about the irresponsibility of teens getting pregnant, not the irresponsibility of a society that fails to educate them to aspire for more."
"As George Bernard Shaw put it in 1922, a man snatches bread "from the baker's counter" and goes to jail; but if he "snatches bread from the table of hundreds of widows and orphans and similar credulous souls ... he is run into Parliament"
"Growing up in Auburn Gresham, in other words, was a preexisting condition ... Research showed that, as early as preschool, an atmosphere of danger imposed a level of background stress that hampered verbal development by the equivalent of a full year of schooling"
"At Wells Fargo, which used similar policies, internal documents revealed that loan officers had referred to subprime mortgages as "ghetto loans" and to Black borrowers as "mud people""
""Thank you for your service." To those who did the fighting, Americans effectively offered "thoughts and prayers" and not much else ... they offered thoughts and prayers, but they had been asked to give nothing of themselves"
"Poverty can be as much about power as it is about possessions; they hadn't felt poor until someone came along and showed them how little power they really had."
January 21, 2022
3.5 stars. This book took me a long time to get through and not because I couldn’t understand it, but because I had a hard time picking it up and diving into topics im familiar with. It was good, well written and well researched. It was pretty depressing and confirmed a lot of what I already know and believe but also gave me more information to back it. Offered a viewpoint that I often overlook, one that is sympathetic of trump voters and gives more humanity to the contempt for our government. A good read and would definitely recommend!
December 10, 2021
A well-constructed account of America's social, political and cultural crisis through the lens of Chicago's gangland violence, West Virginia's relentless poverty and Greenwich's lust for wealth.
March 11, 2022
After the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the United States was united in grief, awash in patriotism and determined not to let it happen again. By 2020 the nation was nearly at war with itself. Civil discourse had long vanished, erased by political extremes, racism, economic stagnation of working people, and the absence of truth in media. Then Trump came along and threw a lit match into the maelstrom of simmering discontent. Suddenly class hatred, contempt of others could be expressed openly. Xenophobia was cool.
Osnos wants to know what happened to us as a nation. He grew up in one of the most affluent towns in America, Greenwich, Connecticut, populated by hedge fund billionaires. At the opposite extreme, as a young man he worked for a small West Virginia newspaper based in a town that has declined along with the coal industry, leaving many of its citizens in poverty and despair. Affluent Americans don't recognize the economic struggle of those who work for a living. Big money in government has contaminated our democracy. Willful ignorance has replaced the search for truth. There are no easy answers.
Osnos wants to know what happened to us as a nation. He grew up in one of the most affluent towns in America, Greenwich, Connecticut, populated by hedge fund billionaires. At the opposite extreme, as a young man he worked for a small West Virginia newspaper based in a town that has declined along with the coal industry, leaving many of its citizens in poverty and despair. Affluent Americans don't recognize the economic struggle of those who work for a living. Big money in government has contaminated our democracy. Willful ignorance has replaced the search for truth. There are no easy answers.
January 11, 2022
There’s so much to say about this book I just don’t know where to begin. Everyone should read this, no matter your personal political beliefs or lack thereof. There's a lot to digest, and maybe we can begin to stop screaming at each other and shutting out all but what we personally want to hear, and try to begin again. It won't be easy. There are too many who only gain from our continued failures to find ways to fix as much as we can without hurting people or burning it all down. We have so much to gain by ignoring those people and listening to one another.
January 25, 2022
Completely absorbing and readable but a long read because I needed to go over things, look up stuff on the internet, etc. It all makes sense: the housing bubble, stagnant wages, greedy companies and people, racist views and actions, loss of newspapers, LOTS of lying and deception all of which makes me feel even worse about the current state of our country. But I might as well have my eyes open as we meet the future.
February 27, 2022
Absolutely loved this book - Osnos knocks this out of the park. It is essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the modern currents operating in the US (and beyond). And beautifully written.
May 19, 2023
Essentially a reeaaally long New Yorker article tracing how the U.S. is so royally effed up.
September 12, 2022
Ever since Trump burst onto the political scene in 2015, I've been fairly obsessed with understanding the psychology, influences, and historical roots of the Trump phenomenon. I can't say I think this is the definitive book on the subject, but it's a pretty good start, and contributes a few nuggets of insight to my collection.
For instance, many people will remember that after Romney's loss to Obama in 2012, the Republican establishment published a report, which came to be known as "the autopsy," concluding that the party needed to tack left to win more votes from minorities. Less well known is the 2013 analysis by Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics concluding that "Romney's biggest mistake was not failing to attract minorities; on the contrary, he wrote, Romney lost because he failed to generate votes from some 6.5 million unenthusiastic white voters." Or the study by conservative pollster Patrick Caddell, commissioned by conservative billionaire Lee Hanley and shared with Steve Bannon, which showed that "The mainstream pro-business, low-tax mantra was no longer bringing in working-class Republican voters." "The numbers, Waddell told them, indicated a public appetite for a populist challenger unlike any conventional Republican, a figure who could run as an outsider, railing against elites, corruption, and the very notion of government itself."
And then there was this tidbit, which I'd never heard: "In 2014, [Roger] Stone introduced Trump to Sam Nunberg, a young operative who was hired to spend thousands of hours monitoring talk radio and right-wing media. Nunberg summarized the themes for Trump, and his briefings highlighted an array of popular post-September 11 sensibilities—xenophobia, conspiracy, racism, anti-government fervor, and religious fundamentalism." So apparently Trump's "uncanny knack" for language that resonated with disaffected rural and working class whites was less intuitive and more calculated than I thought.
One of the strengths of Wildland is the way Osnos uses a number of real-life characters to tell his story, most of them in one of three cities—Chicago, Clarksburg TN, and Greenwich CT—with which Osnos has some personal connection. Some of the characters make only brief appearances; others are introduced with extensive background sketches, and Osnos returns to them over and over. Each illustrates some aspect of the government failures and social ills that underlie the dissatisfaction and despair that Trump exploited.
Osnos began working on Wildland shortly after returning from ten years working abroad, and the book just came out in 2021. I think it's evident that at some point in the last hundred pages or so, his narrative arrived at the present, and the writing style shifted to something more like play-by-play commentary on the news. This was less satisfying for me than the combination of historical analysis and human interest stories that had driven the narrative up until that point. It felt too much like a cursory rehash of the last two years' headlines, without a lot of added insight—although he did continue to check in with his real-life characters occasionally.
While this may not be the definitive book on the Trump era, Osnos's delineation of the main social forces that led to Trump, and the way he connects them to real people, make it an engaging read that contributed meaningfully to my understanding of the strange historical passage we've just been living through.
For instance, many people will remember that after Romney's loss to Obama in 2012, the Republican establishment published a report, which came to be known as "the autopsy," concluding that the party needed to tack left to win more votes from minorities. Less well known is the 2013 analysis by Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics concluding that "Romney's biggest mistake was not failing to attract minorities; on the contrary, he wrote, Romney lost because he failed to generate votes from some 6.5 million unenthusiastic white voters." Or the study by conservative pollster Patrick Caddell, commissioned by conservative billionaire Lee Hanley and shared with Steve Bannon, which showed that "The mainstream pro-business, low-tax mantra was no longer bringing in working-class Republican voters." "The numbers, Waddell told them, indicated a public appetite for a populist challenger unlike any conventional Republican, a figure who could run as an outsider, railing against elites, corruption, and the very notion of government itself."
And then there was this tidbit, which I'd never heard: "In 2014, [Roger] Stone introduced Trump to Sam Nunberg, a young operative who was hired to spend thousands of hours monitoring talk radio and right-wing media. Nunberg summarized the themes for Trump, and his briefings highlighted an array of popular post-September 11 sensibilities—xenophobia, conspiracy, racism, anti-government fervor, and religious fundamentalism." So apparently Trump's "uncanny knack" for language that resonated with disaffected rural and working class whites was less intuitive and more calculated than I thought.
One of the strengths of Wildland is the way Osnos uses a number of real-life characters to tell his story, most of them in one of three cities—Chicago, Clarksburg TN, and Greenwich CT—with which Osnos has some personal connection. Some of the characters make only brief appearances; others are introduced with extensive background sketches, and Osnos returns to them over and over. Each illustrates some aspect of the government failures and social ills that underlie the dissatisfaction and despair that Trump exploited.
Osnos began working on Wildland shortly after returning from ten years working abroad, and the book just came out in 2021. I think it's evident that at some point in the last hundred pages or so, his narrative arrived at the present, and the writing style shifted to something more like play-by-play commentary on the news. This was less satisfying for me than the combination of historical analysis and human interest stories that had driven the narrative up until that point. It felt too much like a cursory rehash of the last two years' headlines, without a lot of added insight—although he did continue to check in with his real-life characters occasionally.
While this may not be the definitive book on the Trump era, Osnos's delineation of the main social forces that led to Trump, and the way he connects them to real people, make it an engaging read that contributed meaningfully to my understanding of the strange historical passage we've just been living through.
November 16, 2022
A brief and important history of our Wildland, was more than needed for my soul- it was essential. Evan Osnos gives an engaging and timely reminder that the America we live in today was not established in a day, by a single person, but over many years, by a people. The sheer scale of this book, the places, people, and times, he covers- is worth the read.
Some highlights:
"Eighty years after Franklin Roosevelt decried the temptation of “fear itself”, Americans did not deny their fears; they announced them and acted on them."
"In 2012, Sheldon Adelson, the conservative casino tycoon spent $93 million. In preparation for the 2016 election, the Koch Brothers, whose fortune came from fossil fuels, organized $889 million."
"When a pastor starts talking about justice, it can make people a little uneasy, because all of a sudden it's not about the need but about changing the system that created that need."
"Trump's claims were debunked by the Department of Homeland Security, by his own attorney general, and, in dozens of cases, by the courts; a month after the election, Trump's lawsuits had been turned away by at least eighty-six judges across the political spectrum, including by some he had personally appointed."
"Across American life, we had refined a set of extraordinary tools- for building wealth, firing bullets, and circulating information- that were so powerful, they altered not just the arrangement of American politics, but also the chemistry of it."
Some highlights:
"Eighty years after Franklin Roosevelt decried the temptation of “fear itself”, Americans did not deny their fears; they announced them and acted on them."
"In 2012, Sheldon Adelson, the conservative casino tycoon spent $93 million. In preparation for the 2016 election, the Koch Brothers, whose fortune came from fossil fuels, organized $889 million."
"When a pastor starts talking about justice, it can make people a little uneasy, because all of a sudden it's not about the need but about changing the system that created that need."
"Trump's claims were debunked by the Department of Homeland Security, by his own attorney general, and, in dozens of cases, by the courts; a month after the election, Trump's lawsuits had been turned away by at least eighty-six judges across the political spectrum, including by some he had personally appointed."
"Across American life, we had refined a set of extraordinary tools- for building wealth, firing bullets, and circulating information- that were so powerful, they altered not just the arrangement of American politics, but also the chemistry of it."
September 16, 2021
America’s Political Dysfunction
Our country is at a crisis point. Osnos dates the problem from September 11th when the United States was shocked by being attacked by terrorists flying planes into our iconic buildings. The anger was real and hasn’t abated. It has led to political divisions where people have become less and less able to see the other person’s point of view.
To try to get an understanding of what was going on in the country and what people were thinking, Osnos centered on three locations he was familiar with, Creenwich, Connecticut, Clasksburg, West Virginia and Chicago, Illinois. These three areas cover a broad spectrum of American communities. Greenwich is the home of the very rich, Clarksburg shows rural poverty, and Chicago is the urban city filled with crime and poverty. Interviewing people in these locations Osnos was able to give a broad view of the emotions driving our political divide.
I found this a very important and interesting book. Clearly our country is in trouble. This can be seen in the way people are responding to the Covid crisis. There is little to no tolerance for the ideas of others. Vaccinated individuals are ready to kill the unvaccinated. It even carries over into whether scientific research showing divergent views can be tolerated. I found Osnos book very helpful in understanding where these viewpoints are coming from and how they affect the current climate.
I received this book from NetGalley for this review.
Our country is at a crisis point. Osnos dates the problem from September 11th when the United States was shocked by being attacked by terrorists flying planes into our iconic buildings. The anger was real and hasn’t abated. It has led to political divisions where people have become less and less able to see the other person’s point of view.
To try to get an understanding of what was going on in the country and what people were thinking, Osnos centered on three locations he was familiar with, Creenwich, Connecticut, Clasksburg, West Virginia and Chicago, Illinois. These three areas cover a broad spectrum of American communities. Greenwich is the home of the very rich, Clarksburg shows rural poverty, and Chicago is the urban city filled with crime and poverty. Interviewing people in these locations Osnos was able to give a broad view of the emotions driving our political divide.
I found this a very important and interesting book. Clearly our country is in trouble. This can be seen in the way people are responding to the Covid crisis. There is little to no tolerance for the ideas of others. Vaccinated individuals are ready to kill the unvaccinated. It even carries over into whether scientific research showing divergent views can be tolerated. I found Osnos book very helpful in understanding where these viewpoints are coming from and how they affect the current climate.
I received this book from NetGalley for this review.
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