Born in Flames - The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City

"Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning!" Supposedly uttered by announcers during the 1977 World Series as flames rose above Yankee Stadium, the phrase encapsulated a chaotic era in US history. Through the 1970s, a wave of arson coursed through American cities, levelling poor communities of colour. However, as historian Bench Ansfield demonstrates in Born in Flames, the majority of the fires weren't set by residents-as is usually assumed-but by landlords seeking insurance payouts.

In an expansive narrative stretching from the Bronx to Britain to Brazil, Ansfield tracks the flows of money that signalled the arrival of our financialised age. From the ashes arose the modern US tenant movement and the fight for housing justice amid a new era of housing insecurity.

About the author

Bench Ansfield is an assistant professor of history at Temple University. Ansfield holds a PhD in American studies from Yale University and won the Allan Nevins Prize for the best dissertation in American history from the Society of American Historians. They live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Product details

• Authors: Bench Ansfield
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 09.09.2025
• EAN: 9781324093510
• ISBN: 978-1-324-09351-0
• Illustrations: 20 illustrations
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; USA, 20th Century, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Urban & municipal planning, Local History, Social discrimination & inequality, United States of America, USA, History of the Americas, Urban and municipal planning and policy, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Discrimination, Northeastern & North Atlantic States, US Northeast: Mid-Atlantic States, Social discrimination and social justice