Wildland

The Making of America's Fury

By: Evan Osnos

Narrated by: Evan Osnos

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

©2021 Evan Osnos (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

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)

An important book for all Americans to read

Thank you Evan Osnos for your reporting and storytelling. Thank you for seeing through the gloom to try to understand it. Wildland is a valuable Rosetta Stone for interpretation.

Impressive book!

This could be a textbook in it’s analysis of our current ordeal. Very well done!

birds eye view of the US

incredible book. well done. he weaves together pieces of stories you probably have superficial knowledge of and digs deep. never dull.

Great Information on Politics and Journalism

I learned much about life and politics in this book. But the story didn't stick with me as it should have. It moves all over the globe and yet comes back to small town America. I liked it, but I think it is a bit much to tackle in a single book. There are two good books in here. Still, I needed this insight, and enjoyed the book.

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).