Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury

While living abroad for over a decade, New Yorker staff writer Evan Osnos often found himself making a case for America, urging citizens of Egypt, Iraq, or China to trust that even though America had made grave mistakes throughout its history, it aspired to some foundational commitments: the rule of law, the power of truth, and the right of equal opportunity. But when Osnos returned to the US, in 2013, he found these principles under assault. In his latest book, Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury (Bloomsbury, 2021), Osnos returns to three places he had lived in the United States—Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois—in search of an explanation for the crisis that reached a crescendo in 2020, a year of pandemic, civil unrest, and political turmoil—through the stories of ordinary individuals navigating twenty-first-century America.

Generously supported by Mercedes-Benz-Fonds.