Wildland

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Evan Osnos returned to Washington, DC, in 2013 after a decade abroad, where he often defended America’s foundational values despite its historical mistakes. However, upon his return, he found these principles under siege. To understand this crisis, he examined three familiar places: Greenwich, Connecticut; Clarksburg, West Virginia; and Chicago, Illinois. Over six years, Osnos chronicles the experiences of ordinary individuals navigating the complexities of twenty-first-century America. Their poignant stories reveal the roots of the nation’s political disintegration. He identifies a rightward shift among the financial elite in Greenwich, the collapse of social infrastructure in Clarksburg, and the compounded effects of segregation and violence in Chicago. The true state of the nation emerges not from political slogans but from the intricate details of individual lives and their hidden connections. This dramatic examination of seismic shifts in American politics and culture spans two significant events: the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the January 6 storming of the US Capitol in 2021. By following everyday Americans across two decades, Osnos sheds light on how the country lost its moral confidence and its sense of collective identity.