Following the lives of everyday Americans in three cities across two decades, National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Evan Osnos illuminates the origins of America's political fury
Nach zehn Jahren als Korrespondent im Nahen Osten und in China zieht Evan Osnos 2013 zurück in die USA. Doch das Land, in das er heimkehrt, ist kaum wiederzuerkennen. Chancengleichheit, Rechtsstaatlichkeit, der Glaube an die Macht der Wahrheit - die fundamentalen Prinzipien der ältesten Demokratie der Welt scheinen ihre Selbstverständlichkeit eingebüßt zu haben. 2016 wird Donald Trump zum Präsidenten gewählt, vier Jahre später stürmen seine Unterstützer das Kapitol. Aus den vereinigten sind die gespaltenen Staaten von Amerika geworden.
Evan Osnos hat diese Entwicklungen über Jahre beobachtet. Er versucht zu verstehen und zu erklären: warum im reichen Greenwich an der Ostküste, wo er aufgewachsen ist, aus gemäßigten Konservativen eingefleischte Trump-Anhänger wurden. Wie sich in Clarksburg, West Virginia, wo er seinen ersten Job bei einer Zeitung annahm, die Opioid-Krise zur nationalen Katastrophe ausweiten konnte. Und was die Ursachen sind für den Rassismus, die Waffengewalt und die Ungleichheit in Chicago, wo er selbst zu einem gefragten Journalisten aufstieg. Aus eindringlichen Porträts entsteht eine große Erzählung, die vom 11. September 2001 bis zum 6. Januar 2021 reicht. Der Pulitzer-Preisträger zeichnet nach, wie die USA den moralischen Kompass verloren, der einst aus einer Vereinigung von Staaten die Vereinigten Staaten machte.
A sweeping and brilliant portrait of a people subjected to fifty years of rightwing aggression . . . The most personal and the most powerful deillegalscription yet . . . My hope is that everyone who reads this great book will be enraged enough to redouble their efforts to undo the damage the greedy have wrought, and to take back America for its decent citizens, once and for all Guardian
Evan Osnos has been a staff writer at the New Yorker since 2008. He is the author of Joe Biden: American Dreamer and Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, which won the National Book Award, among other honours. Previously he reported from China, Iraq and elsewhere for the Chicago Tribune, where he shared a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He lives with his wife and children in Washington, DC.
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Evan Osnos
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'A reportorial tour de force . Heart-rending, appalling and hard to put down' JANE MAYER
'Richly reported, beautifully written . A riveting tale of dark times, told with a pathos and humanity that prompts hope of something better' MICHAEL J. SANDEL
'Visionary in scope, compassionate in procedure . Definitive' AYAD AKHTAR
Evan Osnos moved to Washington, DC, in 2013 after a decade away from the United States. 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, 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.
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 US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Following the lives of everyday Americans in three cities across two decades, Osnos illuminates the country in a startling light, revealing how it lost the moral confidence to see itself as larger than the sum of its parts.
Evan Osnos has been at the New Yorker for over a decade. He was part of a team awarded a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting, and his previous book, Age of Ambition, won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award. Wildland will blend beautiful, first-class writing with real depth of reporting
