Evan Osnos

National Book Award Winner • Bestselling Author • Journalist

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Evan Osnos is a National Book Award-winning author and staff writer at The New Yorker, a host of its flagship podcast, The Political Scene, and a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Known for his witty, articulate and vivid commentary, rich with behind-the-scenes insights from the halls of power, he illuminates both politics and foreign affairs from the ground up, spanning the U.S., the Middle East, Europe, and China. Osnos provides cutting-edge assessments of the biggest stories of the day, from U.S.-China tensions and the struggle for Ukraine, to polarization and the rebuilding of civic ties, to the global implications of the A.I. revolution. A warm, eloquent speaker, Osnos is celebrated for a balanced and thorough view of global events that brings depth, humor, and meaning to a time when many are tempted to turn away from the news.

As an author, Osnos is known for tackling the central issues of our time: His most recent book, The Haves and Have-Yachts, was an instant New York Times bestseller. An exploration of our new gilded age, it was described by the Financial Times as “a beautifully written and often amusing climb to the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.”

His previous book, Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury, was also a New York Times bestseller in 2021. Hailed as a prescient analysis of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the book was described in The Washington Post as a “sprawling, fascinating journey through the dawning decades of the 21st century . . . Osnos weaves an intricate tapestry that gradually reveals how Americans experienced the last two decades.” The book dug deeply into three American locations where he has lived — Greenwich, CT; Clarksburg, WV; and Chicago, IL — to illustrate not only the contrasts between American lives but also the proven pathways to repairing our divides.

Osnos launched his career at the Chicago Tribune, where he shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and 2008, and served as the Beijing bureau chief. His first book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, won the 2014 National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Based on eight years of living in China, it is vividly captured the experience of ordinary people caught in a clash between aspiration and authoritarianism. In 2020, before Joe Biden was elected president, he published Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now, a concise examination of his career, which became an international best-seller and was named a best book of the year by the Financial Times.

Evan has been a contributor to CNN, NPR, and The New York Review of Books, and he is a Senior Nonresident Fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution and a 2027 New America Fellow. He and his family live near Washington, D.C. For more information, visit https://www.evanosnos.com.

Evan Osnos is a National Book Award-winning author and staff writer at The New Yorker, a host of its flagship podcast, The Political Scene, and a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Known for his witty, articulate and vivid commentary, rich with behind-the-scenes insights from the halls of power, he illuminates both politics and foreign affairs from the ground up, spanning the U.S., the Middle East, Europe, and China. Osnos provides cutting-edge assessments of the biggest stories of the day, from U.S.-China tensions and the struggle for Ukraine, to polarization and the rebuilding of civic ties, to the global implications of the A.I. revolution. A warm, eloquent speaker, Osnos is celebrated for a balanced and thorough view of global events that brings depth, humor, and meaning to a time when many are tempted to turn away from the news.

As an author, Osnos is known for tackling the central issues of our time: His most recent book, The Haves and Have-Yachts, was an instant New York Times bestseller. An exploration of our new gilded age, it was described by the Financial Times as “a beautifully written and often amusing climb to the very top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.”

His previous book, Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury, was also a New York Times bestseller in 2021. Hailed as a prescient analysis of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the book was described in The Washington Post as a “sprawling, fascinating journey through the dawning decades of the 21st century . . . Osnos weaves an intricate tapestry that gradually reveals how Americans experienced the last two decades.” The book dug deeply into three American locations where he has lived — Greenwich, CT; Clarksburg, WV; and Chicago, IL — to illustrate not only the contrasts between American lives but also the proven pathways to repairing our divides.

Osnos launched his career at the Chicago Tribune, where he shared the Pulitzer Prize in 2001 and 2008, and served as the Beijing bureau chief. His first book, Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, won the 2014 National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Based on eight years of living in China, it is vividly captured the experience of ordinary people caught in a clash between aspiration and authoritarianism. In 2020, before Joe Biden was elected president, he published Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now, a concise examination of his career, which became an international best-seller and was named a best book of the year by the Financial Times.

Evan has been a contributor to CNN, NPR, and The New York Review of Books, and he is a Senior Nonresident Fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution and a 2027 New America Fellow. He and his family live near Washington, D.C. For more information, visit https://www.evanosnos.com.

The Power of Story
In one place after another, we’ve lost faith in our neighbors, our institutions—and, increasingly, in the words and images that fill our screens. How do we learn to trust again? Evan Osnos is a Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller and analyst who has spent decades thinking deeply about the most pressing political and sociological problems of our time. In this thought-provoking and uplifting talk, he makes the case that the answer lies in the stories we tell. Stories can tear us apart, but they can also stitch us back together. Osnos details some of the most exciting projects he sees unfolding today, from the rebirth of local news to smart projects designed to pull young people off their screens and out of their houses. He explains how we can harness new ways of understanding our shared experiences and challenges in order to rebuild civic dialogue and engagement and restore confidence in our shared ability to tackle hard problems together.

The Haves and Have-Yachts: Navigating the Age of the Ultrarich
The ultrarich now control more of America’s wealth than in the days of the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers. National Book Award winner Evan Osnos offers a wry, unfiltered look at how money shapes our time—monumentalizing itself in steel and stone, fueling philanthropy’s mix of self-interest and civic duty, and wielding technology to shape what we see and believe. With deft storytelling, he unpacks the fabulous, absurd, and unsettling: pop stars at kids’ parties, status anxieties in Palm Beach, and real-world Succession-like dramas. Drawing from his bestselling books Wildland and The Haves and Have-Yachts, Osnos takes us from Mark Zuckerberg’s Palo Alto living room to a retired coal miner’s kitchen in West Virginia. Timely and eye-opening, this talk reveals the forces behind wealth, influence, and the growing backlash they provoke—offering a deeper understanding of us all.

Clarity in a Year of Uncertainty
One of America’s preeminent political journalists, Evan Osnos has spent the past 25 years in the hot spots that shape our world today: Washington, China, Ukraine, the Middle East. Known for rare prescience and access, he has published books on Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Xi Jinping. He focuses on overlooked leadership dynamics and behind-the-scenes dramas that reverberate through business, politics, and foreign affairs. A sought-after guest on television and radio, he isolates the most revealing anecdotes and facts from a complicated world, to give audiences a renewed sense of clarity in a time of uncertainty. Among his most popular speeches, a lively tour of global hotspots goes inside the White House, the halls of Chinese leadership, and to the frontlines of Iran, Ukraine and Israel, for an up-to-the-minute sense of where the world is heading.

Superpower Politics: Navigating China, Russia, and America in 2026
Starbucks is opening a new store in China every fifteen hours; TikTok is redefining American social media. Business continues even as bombs rain down on Tehran, U.S. and Chinese jets jockey in the skies over the South China Sea, and Russia raises the threat of nuclear confrontation. For the first time in a generation, the world is divided by great-power politics, but, unlike the Cold War, the U.S. and China are also economically entwined on an unprecedented scale. How do leaders in Washington, Beijing, and Moscow really talk, behind closed doors, about the future? What is hype and what is real? What are the rules that companies, consumers, and global citizens can rely on to thrive in an age of big-power competition? With insights from across the globe, Evan Osnos is a Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller and analyst, who combines deep knowledge with up-to-the-minute insights on the new global balance of power. Are the East and West on a collision course, or can we find common ground? A vibrant narrative analysis of the players and the issues.

Rebuilding America’s Common Ground
On the eve of America’s 250th anniversary, acclaimed best-selling author Evan Osnos takes us on an unforgettable exploration of our most vital mission: reviving civic trust. Traveling from rural West Virginia to Chicago’s South Side to the C-suites of Silicon Valley, his talk illuminates our age of isolation, but also what’s actually working to knit us back together. He explores the science of firsthand exposure; the power of service as an engine of empathy; and the antidotes for misinformation and cynicism. For a republic to thrive in the age of artificial intelligence, we will need to double down on the human arts of listening and storytelling. With inspiring examples from history and the present, Osnos gives us practical lessons, a usable map for communities, campuses, and companies.

The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich (Scribner, 2025)
Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021)
Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now (Scribner, 2020)
Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China (Vintage, 2021)

Selected Articles

The Future, Made in China, The New Yorker

The Pageantry and Flattery of Donald Trump’s Visit to China, The New Yorker

China’s Age of Malaise, The New Yorker

The Haves and the Have-Yachts, The New Yorker

2027 New America Fellowship
2014 National Book Award, Age of Ambition
2014 Finalist, Pulitzer Prize, Age of Ambition
2014 Overseas Press Club Cornelius Ryan Award, Age of Ambition
2012 Overseas Press Club Whitman Bassow Award, “The Fallout,” The New Yorker
2008 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, shared with the staff of the Chicago Tribune
2006 Overseas Press Club Whitman Bassow Award, “The Price We Pay for China’s Boom,” Chicago Tribune
2001 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, shared with the staff of the Chicago Tribune