Born in flames : the business of arson and the remaking of the American city / Bench Ansfield.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ansfield, Bench, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bronx (New York, N.Y.)--History--20th century.

Bronx (New York, N.Y.).

United States.

Arson--United States--History--20th century.

Arson.

Arson--Economic aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Housing--United States--History--20th century.

Housing.

Landlord and tenant--United States--History--20th century.

Landlord and tenant.

Right to housing--United States--History--20th century.

Right to housing.

Discrimination in housing.

housing discrimination.

Arson--History.

Arson--Economic aspects.

Housing--History.

Landlord and tenant--History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

350 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Business of arson and the remaking of the American city

Place of Publication:

New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2025]

Summary:

"A young historian's superlative debut . . . this excellent book delivers the truth about 'the burning years." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "[R]iveting . . . an outstanding expose of the predatory capitalist machinations behind the 'Bronx is burning' saga."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) The explosive account of the arson wave that hit the Bronx and other American cities in the 1970s--and its legacy today.

"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 vast majority of the fires were not set by residents, as is commonly assumed, but by landlords looking to collect insurance payouts. Driven by perverse incentives--new government-sponsored insurance combined with tanking property values--landlords hired "torches,' mostly Black and Brown youth, to set fires in the buildings, sometimes with people still living in them. Tens of thousands of families lost their homes to these blazes, yet for much of the 1970s, tenant vandalism and welfare fraud stood as the prevailing explanations for the arson wave, effectively indemnifying landlords. Ansfield's book, based on a decade of research, introduces the term "brownlining" for the destructive insurance practices imposed on poor communities of color under the guise of racial redress. Ansfield shows that as the FIRE industries--finance, insurance, and real estate-- eclipsed manufacturing in the 1970s, they began profoundly reshaping Black and Brown neighborhoods, seeing them as easy sources of profit. At every step, Ansfield charts the tenant-led resistance movements that sprung up in the Bronx and elsewhere, as well as the explosion of popular culture around the fires, from iconic movies like The Towering Inferno to hit songs such as 'Disco Inferno.' Ultimately, they show how similarly pernicious dynamics around insurance and race are still at play in our own era, especially in regions most at risk of climate shocks." -- Provided by the publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Race and risk in the burning years

Part I: Risk. 1. The crisis of insurance and the insuring of the crisis

2. The brownlining of the Bronx

Part II: Reverb. 3. To torch a fireproof building

4. "We went to bed with our shoes on every night"

5. A triangular trade in risk

Part III: Revolt. 6. Out of the shadows and into the streets

7. Fighting fire with fire

8. Corrective capitalism

Epilogue: The ashes of history

Acknowledgments

New York FAIR plan loss experience

A note on arson statistics

Sources consulted

Notes

Credits

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [281]-329) and index.

Athenaeum literary award ; 2025

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Miller Fund bookplate; copy 2: Gemmill fund bookplate..

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781324093510

132409351X

OCLC:

1455397303

Publisher Number:

CIPO000244655