Wildland is heavy on context, as Osnos supports his narrative by citing scholars of every stripe.

... a sprawling, fascinating journey through the dawning decades of the 21st century.

Osnos compellingly describes life in three places that represent the pre-spark wildland.

At its best, Wildland has an appealing shaggy-dog quality, as Mr Osnos listens to people tell stories of their lives in the two decades since the cataclysm. But as chapter after chapter derides typical liberal bogeymen—guns, money in politics, fossil fuels—it becomes predictable.

Osnos writes clear prose that expertly summons images from our political past.

In a personal, somewhat autobiographical account intended for concerned Americans, Osnos considers the dissimilitude among residents, which he memorably presents in vignettes illustrating differences in credulousness (of the media and politicians); feelings of safety; and expectations of intergenerational mobility and the American Dream.

... stellar reporting that blends a high-altitude view of national changes with close-ups of private citizens in three places he’s lived in the U.S. Osnos is at his best in his superb portrait of Greenwich, Connecticut, where he grew up.

Osnos vividly sketches hedge-fund managers, ex-cons, Barack Obama, and white nationalist Richard Spencer, among others, and encapsulates worldviews in elegant, pithy prose.