Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City [Hardcover]

Finalist for the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in History [R]evelatory&The counternarrative Ansfield offers is as absorbing as it is enraging.& Ansfield structures these revelations with the pacing of a mystery, posing questionsWhy did insurers keep paying out? Why did the very systems meant to prevent insurance fraud instead enable it?that land with the force of plot twists.& Deeply researched and masterfully told, [F]ormidable&a deft, at times brilliant history&Ansfields great achievement is following the money, the thread linking the fortunes to the fires. This is the panoramic, its-all-connected view that racial-capitalism theory promises. [D]isputes the long-held notion that tenants were responsible for many of the notorious fires that burned in New York City in the 70s and 80s, many of them in The Bronx. Instead, Ansfield places the blame on flawed and inadequate legislation and greedy landlords&More worrying, argues Ansfield, is that the inequality that fueled the fires in the 1970s hasnt gone away. [S]ets the record straight&Like the best crime dramas, Born in Flames manages to be both diligent and engrossing. Prodigious research& [keeps] readers attuned to the ways that finance and policy impact peoples lives and neighborhoods. [A]n eye-opening, myth-busting analysis of this little-knownand still relevantepisode in American urban history. For a book that is, at base, a story of the serpentine ways of the insurance industry, Doggedly researched and as gripping as a detective story, [O]utstanding& A strength of A young historians superlative debut&this excellent book delivers the truth about the burning years. [R]iveting& an outstanding expos? of the predatory capitalist machinations behind the Bronx is burning saga. This outstanding book will change everything that we think we know about what happened to American cities in the late twentieth century. A masterpiece of history. Reading like a detective novel, Bench Ansfield exposes how the insural3(