Why 2020 is the year everything changed: An Interview with Eric Klinenberg

Issue 105: Eric Klinenberg on how 2020 reveals that we all make choices, but we don't get to choose the choices we have to choose from.

We all recently lived through one of the most transformative years in history: 2020. It was a year of global upheaval, where the threads of human resilience intertwined with tragedy, uncertainty, and collective action. Scholars are already reflecting on the year and are starting to see how the events of 2020 have shaped our society today and will continue to shape it well into the future. We have studied how national identity and partisan polarization played into the response to the pandemic and also the threats to democracy that unfolded toward the end of 2020. So we we excited to feature a new book that brought together all these topics.

In “2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year That Changed Everything“, award-winning author and NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg presents a meticulously reported, character-driven investigation of a time when nothing was certain and everything was at stake. At the heart of 2020 are seven vivid profiles of ordinary New Yorkers—including an elementary…