The Unwinding An Inner History Of The New America [Paperback]

The 2013 National Book Award Winner

ANew York TimesBestseller
Selected byNew York Times' critic Dwight Garner as a Favorite Book of 2013
ANew York TimesNotable Book of 2013
AWashington PostBest Political Book of 2013
An NPR Best Book of 2013
ANew RepublicBest Book of 2013
One ofPublishers Weekly's Best Nonfiction Books of 2013
AKirkus ReviewsBest Nonfiction Book of 2013

A riveting examination of a nation in crisis, from one of the finest political journalists of our generation

American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while rending the social contract, driving the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. InThe Unwinding, George Packer, author ofThe Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives.

The Unwindingjourneys through the lives of several Americans, including Dean Price, the son of tobacco farmers, who becomes an evangelist for a new economy in the rural South; Tammy Thomas, a factory worker in the Rust Belt trying to survive the collapse of her city; Jeff Connaughton, a Washington insider oscillating between political idealism and the lure of organized money; and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire who questions the Internet's significance and arrives at a radical vision of the future. Packer interweaves these intimate stories with biographical sketches of the era's leading public figures, from Newt Gingrich to Jay-Z, and collages made from newspaper headlines, advertising slogans, and sonló'