You’d be hard-pressed to find a person whose life went unchanged in 2020, arguably one of the most consequential years in human history. It marked an unprecedented time, left indelible memories in our minds, and set off ripple effects we still feel even today. Disruption of normal life was nearly universal; however, the ways in which we experienced disruption were varied.

Acclaimed sociologist and bestselling author Eric Klinenberg’s latest work 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed offers an account of a single year in modern history told through the stories of seven New Yorkers. From an elementary school principal to a bar manager, a subway custodian to a political aide, the book sheds light on the human experience of that fateful time four years ago, illuminating both individual and collective uncertainty, fear, loss, and hope.

Although the book is centered on New York City, 2020 also explores the political spheres of the nation’s capital and beyond, as well as epidemiological battles, policies, and movements worldwide. Set against the backdrop of a tense presidential election and social unrest, Klinenberg offers a window into a recent time of reckoning and an invitation to examine ourselves and our experiences.

Eric Klinenberg is the Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He is the co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Modern Romance and author of Palaces for the People, Going Solo, Heat Wave, and Fighting for Air. He has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, and This American Life. He lives in New York City.

Margaret O’Mara is the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington. Margaret is a leading historian of Silicon Valley and the author of two acclaimed books about the modern American technology industry: The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (Penguin Press, 2019) and Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search For The Next Silicon Valley (Princeton, 2005). She also is a historian of the American presidency and author of Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century (Penn Press, 2015). She is a coauthor, with David Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, of the widely used United States history college textbook, The American Pageant (Cengage).

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2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed

The Elliott Bay Book Company