Renowned sociologist and best-selling author Eric Klinenberg turns a year of devastation into a year of revelation in this wise, deeply researched and cathartic account of the pandemic.

'A gripping, deeply moving account' SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE, author of The Song of the Cell

What unites us? What divides us? What do we value? Sociologist Eric Klinenberg had been studying what crises reveal about societies for over two decades when his home of New York became the deadliest hot spot of the global pandemic. In this book he tells the deeply reported stories of seven ordinary people trying to survive at the epicentre of the crisis, and combines them with data gathered from around the world to provide unprecedented insights into what societies are made of, why they come together or fall apart, and how they shape our lives.

'Compellingly reveals what the pandemic laid bare about our culture, our institutions, and ourselves' Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted

'A book that's at once intimate and far-ranging, that reveals the importance of social solidarity and also its fragility' Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction