Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City or even because he was

or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker

a delightful story for any book lover

and how this evolution still shapes all our lives today

and the division of labor deepens until it leaves two classes

Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City or even because he was"Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!" That legendary and apocryphal phrase, allegedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series as flames rose above Yankee Stadium, seemed to encapsulate an entire era in this nation's urban history. Across that decade, a wave of arson coursed through American cities, destroying entire neighborhoods home to poor communities of color. Yet as historian Bench Ansfield demonstrates in Born in Flames, the