Evan Osnos: Shadows of the American Dream

Name: Evan Osnos: Shadows of the American Dream
Start: 2026-04-13T20:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-04-13T22:00:00+02:00
Location: Pakhuis de Zwijger

Schedule

Mon Apr 13 2026 at 08:00 pm to 10:00 pm

UTC+02:00

Location

Pakhuis de Zwijger | Amsterdam, NH

What does it mean to pursue the American Dream in a nation where wealth and opportunity are increasingly concentrated at the top? At a moment when economic inequality shapes who thrives, who struggles, and who is left behind, Evan Osnos, National Book Award–winning author and longtime New Yorker staff writer, presents an incisive and often darkly comic account of contemporary elites, tracing how wealth defines influence, molds institutions, and even shapes the very idea of the American Dream in the twenty-first century. In lifting the curtain on the secretive lives of billionaires and oligarchs, Osnos illuminates the dazzling allure and isolating power of extreme wealth.
In his latest book, 'The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich', a series of essays in the New Yorker, Osnos lifts the curtain on the secretive lives of billionaires and oligarchs, illuminating the dazzling allure and isolating power of extreme wealth. Through his work, Osnos invites readers to see inequality not merely as a set of numbers or abstract forces, but as lived stories: of families, communities, and societies molded by power, ambition, and social pressures. Blending reporting, narrative insight, and a touch of dark humor, he captures the anxieties, ambitions, and contradictions of those at the top, while revealing the ripple effects on those navigating life outside the gilded gates of privilege.