The Unwinding

The Unwinding is a fresh new look at the pre-crisis and post crisis US. George Packer looks at the past and present through the lives of well chosen real people who's livelihood were fundamentally affected by economic trends as well as the aftermath of the crisis. It is a unique and interesting lense into what the crisis really meant for people rather than macroeconomic aggregates and provides a much more human point of reference for the reader. The book is split into three parts that are effectively chronological. It has interspersed short chapters on chosen celebrities and their stories as well. The book focuses on a small group of individuals - Dean Price, Jeff Connaughton, Tammy Thomas, and as well on Tampa. They each have their own storyline and essentially can be read seperately as they are non-overlapping. George Packer also includes short chapters on Newt Gingrich, Oprah Winfrey, Sam Walton, Silicon Valley, Colin Powell, Bob Rubin, Jay - Z among others. Each character is chosen for good reason and the following of their lives gives a flavour of much of what has happened in the US. Dean Price comes from a tabacco farming past who constantly tries to re-invent himself and finally focuses on sustainable bio-fuels. It is a story of the peaks and troughs of entrepreneurism and the drive that this character felt towards finding purpose as well as financial recklessness that came with it. Jeff Connaughton is a political idealist who gave up Wall street to try to make a difference and joined Biden. The disillusionment in the process and the man growing with time forced a career move into the lobbying world where the reader sees a different side of american politics and the financial spillovers or in fact drivers that move Washington. Tammy Thomas is a woman growing up in poverty in the rustbelt in Ohio, she sees the slow dissolution of industrial activity and the spillovers of the exodus on community. It is a story of struggle and reinvention with a backdrop of slow fossilization of industry. Tampa covers where the housing boom was highly pronounced and goes through stories of overleverage, fraud and predatory lending, it covers how the mortgage market looked from the bottom up. The chapters on the celebrities are all examples of the cognitive dissonance of some of those in stardom and are great reading while jumping from character to character adding to the overall work. The Unwinding is a comprehensive account of the lives of people who grew up and lived through the great credit cycle that had gone on in the US for several decades. It discusses implicitly the leverage that built up in the system, it discusses the changing nature of american industry and the changing nature of american politics. It discusses disillusionment as well as aspects of revilization at the individual level. It is a historic account that gives a lot of perspective. The characters are excellently chosen and the messages one can take out of the book are broad and illuminating. Very good addition to the literature on recent US history that is truly unique.

Clearly, George Packer is a well established member of the anti-establishment and that view determines the polarization of his pen as he sketches a series of lives and their experiences with what he terms the unwinding. He defines the unwinding as the change in American society present in the last 40 years as we have transitioned from a manufacturing-based and more localized economy to our present state. The author describes this world for us as a place where the institutions of government have failed us because they have been taken over by special interests and the only guardians of hope are the iconoclast organizers, journalists and activists determined to fight the system. However, any time these activists get to work, they better not get too big because they risk becoming part of the establishment, which creates a strange tension for me: while you can't trust any private institution to act responsibly, he seems to have a blind trust in the government to regulate and level the playing field. Through a set of engaging and short biographical vignettes, he builds the case for increased regulation to protect the public from our failed institutions. He puts a name and a history on what otherwise might be another name who loses their home. He portrays hapless families used by the big banks to take away their home, and to be content there, but to take away their dignity, their health and even their sanity in an insatiable act of greed. His message is clear -- a disease has taken over our country and it is in general the establishment and in particular republican party (wholly owned by big business) and the democrats of the permanent political class. But isn't he missing something here? Aren't we all culpable when it comes to greed? I know it is obvious, but I can't escape the fact that no one was forced to sign any of the mortgage papers that provided the legal justification to reclaim their homes after they repeatedly failed to make payments. While he exalts the value of the individual against the institution, even his heroes come off a bit weak. Dean Price, Tammy and Peter Theil all get their platform while some are put before us for outright scorn or tabloid entertainment: Breitbart, Gingrich, and Oprah. Yes, all the biographies are interesting, but besides their entertainment value many failed to fall into the larger narrative in any meaningful way. Despite my overall disagreement with his diagnosis, I greatly enjoyed this read and recommend it to my friends. He also exposes you to inside the system and does give some very interesting perspectives. The way he tells it in biographical sketches made the book very compelling and did teach me a lot about the world and the way he set up his framework forced me to ask some very interesting questions related to how I think the world fits together. In the end, was left motivated by the book to do something. Not just motivated to be part of the solution, but I was committed to not be at the mercy of legal and banking systems. Most of all I want to be full in my humanity. I want to be an individual empowered by the ability to have freedom of action and freedom to be and I want to be part of the world that empowers individuals to do the same.

America is a country I've grown to love (or at least certainly the bits I've visited). And as Bono has said more than once (perhaps explaining why he's never forsaken his Irish roots despite his love for the US): Ireland's a great country, but America is a great idea. But like all idealism, it often gets dislocated from reality. Patriotic fervour blinds us to the margins and the dispossessed. Which is why New Yorker staff-writer George Packer's new book is so extraordinary. The Unwinding: An Inner history of the New America is nothing short of a masterpiece. The prose is superlative: understated, humane, at times even lyrical. The subject-matter is dealt with great sensitivity and non-partisanship. There are no political sideswipes here. He is merely trying to hold up a mirror. This is more a careful diagnosis of a country that is greatly loved but for which is there is great (and justifiable) concern. For what is happening to the great American idea when such contrasting bandwagons as Occupy and the Tea Party have gained such traction? How did the Credit Crunch and the sub-prime mortgage scandal come about; what has happened to the much touted American sense of optimism? Why do the big institutions like the federal government, banks, media and the legal system all seem to be failing those who need them most? Packer artfully manages to take the nation's temperature by means of a handful of individuals, whose stories from the last 30 years he tells through the book. They are well-chosen: a small-business entrepreneur in North Carolina; a newspaper reporter in Tampa, Florida; an African-American single mother in the Rust Belt; an Indian immigrant struggling to keep her motel franchise afloat; a DC beltway insider who has been lawyer, Wall St drone, on Joe Biden's senate staff, successful lobbyist; a key player in Silicon Valley. These stories are leitmotifs, around which Packer weaves thumbnail sketches of iconic figures in recent American history like Newt Gingrich, Oprah Winfrey, Sam 'Walmart' Walton and short story writer Raymond Carver. His thesis is striking for its moderation, in a way. He doesn't detect a total collapse, as more histrionic or irresponsible journalists might. He simply calls it an 'unwinding', something which has happened from time to time in American history, and from which the country has often bounced back. But left unaddressed, the genuine grievances articulated here will lead to a problem far more serious than a mere unwinding. "When the norms that made the old institutions useful began to unwind, and the leaders abandoned their posts, the Roosevelt Republic that had reigned for almost half a century came undone. The void was filled by the default force in American life, organized money. ... The unwinding is nothing new. There have been unwindings every generation or two." (p3) Drawing on conversations with silicon valley billionaire Peter Thiel, there is an interesting point about the 2012 presidential election: "President Obama probably believed that there wasn't much to be done about decline except manage it, but he couldn't give another `malaise' speech (after what happened to Jimmy Carter, no one ever would again), so his picture of the future remained strangely empty. Both Obama and Romney ended up in the wrong place: the former thought American exceptionalism was no longer true and should be given up while the latter thought it was still true. Neither was willing to tell Americans that they were no longer exceptional but should try to be again." (p385) For foreigners like me, the notion of American exceptionalism is a tricky one. I can't help but be reminded of the jingoistic pride of British imperialism 100 years ago. I say this with what I hope is sensitivity, but to consider one's country as the best in every way is both fallacious and idolatrous. It is of course totally different to aspire to be great as a country, but one has to be very careful to choose the right criteria for measuring that greatness. Having the world's biggest defence budget or largest economy might not be the best yardsticks, especially when there are such significant problems as personified by the testimonies recounted in this book. Again the libertarian-minded Peter Thiel has a challenging warning: "In the history of the modern world, inequality has only been ended through communist revolution, war, or deflationary economic collapse. It's a disturbing question which of these three is going to happen today, or if there's a fourth way out."(p372) For all our sakes, but especially for those trapped at the bottom of a deeply divided society (and therefore a long way from experiencing true American liberty), let us hope there can now be a rewinding.

Lays bare the whole structure of power and the bypassing of large parts of the population, a must read for everyone!

Amazingly well written!!!!!!!!!!

I more than enjoyed reading this book, I recommend it to anyone interested in social evolutions, politics, or the United States by and large. A great book.

This is a remarkable book - it covers US politics in particular and society in general by touching on the lives of people on the right and left and the mostly forgotten middle. It has the remarkable outcome of educating the reader on ‘how we got here’ without taking a position or narrating at any point. One of my favourite books of 2019.