This book traces the last thirty-five years of life in the United States through an eclectic mix of biographical and geographical profiles. Packer paints arresting, astute portraits of familiar figures like Colin Powell, Elizabeth Warren, Raymond Carver, Jay-Z, Robert Rubin, and Oprah, and then takes more in-depth inventory of anonymous American lives. These include a factory worker-turned-activist, an erstwhile company man who became a struggling entrepreneur, a formerly apolitical engineer who transformed into a Tea Party organizer, and the city of Tampa—which went from “America’s Next Great City” in 1985 to the epicenter of foreclosures in 2008.

Perhaps the most entertaining section covers the trajectory of Jeff Connaughton, a longtime Biden staffer who later cashed out as lobbyist, then wrote a damning exposé of the Capitol Hill-K Street-Wall Street alliance. (See also: “Biting the hand that feeds you.”) It’s an intriguing psychological study of an underling who initially hopes that proximity will equal power, settles for respect, gets neither, then gets greedy. And let’s just say that Biden is more Joe Pesci in Goodfellas than Crazy Uncle Joe here.

What could have been a diffuse, messy exercise is held together by Packer’s artistry and easy command of the material’s complexity. Plus, his writing is simply outstanding: simultaneously humane and dispassionate, diplomatic yet acerbic. This is excellent stuff.