Wildland: The Making of America's Fury by Evan Osnos

Wildland: The Making of America's Fury

by Evan Osnos

View on Goodreads
Society & CulturePolitics & Power

After a decade abroad defending American ideals to Egyptians, Iraqis and Chinese, Evan Osnos came home to find them in tatters. He returns to three places he once lived, Greenwich, Clarksburg and Chicago, and follows ordinary people from 9/11 to January 6 to trace where the country's political fury came from.

Core ideas
  • America's fury is best explained from the ground up: the state of the nation shows in the details of individual lives more than in the slogans of its leaders
  • Three places tell three parts of one story: the financial elite of Greenwich drifting right, the collapse of social infrastructure and opportunity in Clarksburg, and the compounded effects of segregation and violence in Chicago
  • Between 9/11 and January 6 the country lost the moral confidence to see itself as more than the sum of its parts, and fear and greed filled the space where a shared civic project used to be
Published2021
ISBN9780374286675
ReadSep 2026

Connected to 6 other books

See the connection map
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance Hillbilly Elegy J.D. Vance Read Jul 2024 Deindustrialization hit Rust Belt towns hard, and Vance grants what that did. The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich by Evan Osnos The Haves and Have-Yachts Evan Osnos Read Jan 2026 Superyachts, luxury bunkers, trusts and political donations: Osnos follows what extreme wealth buys, how it gets protected and… Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right by Jane Mayer Dark Money Jane Mayer Read Apr 2025 By Mayer's count, 18 billionaires worth a combined $214 billion helped fund the opposition to the Obama administration. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond Evicted Matthew Desmond Read Apr 2023 Some tenants in Milwaukee's poorest neighborhoods spent 70 to 80 percent of their income on rent for substandard housing. Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America by Kurt Andersen Evil Geniuses Kurt Andersen Read Sep 2022 In 1971 about 175 companies had lobbyists in Washington, and by the Reagan years nearly 2,500 did. American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic by John Temple American Pain John Temple Read Aug 2023 A young ex-felon and his partners turned a South Florida pain clinic into the largest pill mill in the United States.