Wildland by Evan Osnos
Wildland is a book by Evan Osnos that explores the United States and its people subjected to 50 years of right-wing aggression. The author returned to the US after living abroad for a decade and found a drastically altered country whose core values were being challenged. The book is a sweeping and brilliant portrait of the American people and their struggles.
The book covers several themes, including the decline of trust and investment in government, wealthy philanthropists promoting the narrative that government is incompetent or inefficient, and the shattering of the nation into separate and unequal shards. The author argues that the election of Donald Trump in 2016 was not the cause of the deep fractures in the country but rather the culmination of many years of division.
The book takes readers on a journey through the dawning decades of the 21st century, exploring the seismic changes in American politics and culture. It is a prescient examination of the fundamental shifts and deep fractures that have occurred between 9/11 and Jan. 6, 2020.
What I Liked
Wildland was one of the rare contemporary political books that I’ve read. Like many Americans, I’m still struggling to understand what in the world I’m living through and what in the world I’ve lived through in the past 20 years. This author did a good job zooming out above the day to day ridiculousness to make a little sense of what is going on in the US – and how it actually fits into other global trends.
I appreciated how this book tried to look at the 2000s as a whole rather than focusing on a single individual. The US as a whole made many policy choices in the 1980s and 1990s (during relative peace & prosperity) that set us up for massive failure and division when we hit several major stressors all in a row in the 2000s.
I liked the variety of anecdotes that he used as microcosms – they all felt relatable. Pairs well with this article, which covers how politicians and political tribes responded to the stressors of the 2000s.
What I Did Not Like
Not a whole lot. Though it was a bit long for some very succinct points.
