BORN IN FLAMES: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City (Norton 8/19) wwnorton.com/books/978132409… they/them
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You literally need to win a lottery to be added to a *waitlist* for housing assistance. It’s been 15 years since you could even enter your name into the lottery.
We live in a permanent housing crisis.
New Yorkers will have 6 days to apply for the Section 8 waitlist from June 3rd to June 6th, the first time the waitlist has opened since 2009. Of those that apply, 200K will be selected by lottery for the waitlist. Here are the current income limits on.nyc.gov/section8-applicat…
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Welcome to abolition! Though our calls for defunding and abolishing the police and prisons may seem brand new, many of us have been practicing abolition for decades. The transformative justice movement is one name for this effort. Here are some resources: /1
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Getting "greedy landlords" printed in the NY Post is surreal. Never thought I'd be in the tabloids.
ALT New York Post headline reading: "Greedy landlords - not Bronx residents - were really to blame for the fires that ravaged NYC in the '70s and '80s: new book"
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I'm so accustomed to the academic job market tearing people away from their communities that for 9 years I've been telling my Philly loves it was unlikely I'd return anytime soon. I'm shocked to announce that in '24 I'll begin as an Asst Prof of History at Temple U...in Philly😭
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A little light at the end of a terrible weekend: here’s a photo of Ruth Wilson Gilmore in front of big Ruthie
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The term “burnout” was forged in the glow of a literal firestorm—the wave of landlord arson that ravaged NYC in the 1970s. For the Rest issue of @JewishCurrents, I wrote on the term’s origins in the creative destruction of the city and its workers.
jewishcurrents.org/edifice-c…
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I reviewed the film Riotsville, USA for @nybooks. If you want to see a documentary that not only defangs the carceral state, but helps us think outside of it, see this film. It's the antidote to copaganda. It's aboliterature.
nybooks.com/daily/2022/09/16…
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All those articles this summer (and the summer before that...) on how much property damage BLM protests were causing? Those were insurer talking points. Amidst the 60s uprisings, insurers acted as racial capitalism's first responders. Here's how: academic.oup.com/jah/article…
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I wrote a dissertation. This one's for my loves.
Taking suggestions on how to celebrate when the academic job market is so bleak.
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As we rage, please remember that not every pregnant person is a woman, and abortion rights and women's rights are not interchangeable.
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I'm certain this is a mistake but my book is somehow on Barnes & Noble's list of "Most Anticipated Nonfiction of 2025" (link below).
BORN IN FLAMES: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City is out Aug 19th from @wwnorton
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Beyond excited to be beginning my first semester as an Assistant Professor of History at @TempleUniv.
This week marks the 60th anniversary of the '64 Philadelphia rebellion. I'm teaching a course on the History of the U.S. City in Nine Uprisings. Many public events tba!
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When I started writing my dissertation, I was on medical leave and almost certain I wouldn’t be able to complete it. This award is the fruition of all the community care it took to get me well. Care work is the closest thing to magic I’ve experienced.
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Tonight Dartmouth faculty voted to censure the college president in response to this scene from May 1. Didn’t know they had it in em
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Imagine hearing "We Shall Overcome" in the mid-'60s and hearing "kill all white people." The same type of deliberate misreading is at play with "from the river to the sea." It's about criminalizing and penalizing dissent.
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We knew broken windows policing was an excuse for racialized police violence. Turns out it was phony science too. My small contribution to the effort to tear it down (THREAD): washingtonpost.com/outlook/2…
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Join Mariame Kaba and three brilliant abolitionist organizers for a free virtual event on transformative justice at a time of co-optation, and justice in the midst of institutional failure. April 14th at 6 ET. Open to all. Register here: bit.ly/3i8wOFC
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Teachers and profs, this is a moment to learn from your students and find your courage
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Exhilarating for BORN IN FLAMES to receive a feature review in the pages of the @NewYorker. Immerwahr and I come to different conclusions about racial capitalism and the burning years, but I hope our debate will be fruitful for others. -->
ALT Screenshot of New Yorker article titled "Did Racial Capitalism Set the Bronx on Fire?" by Daniel Immerwahr
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Giselle, the 7-year-old child of my dear friends, was kidnapped today by her non-custodial biological father. He is armed, last seen leaving Philly toward NYC. Please spread the word to help bring her home.
#BREAKING: An amber alert has been issued for 7-year-old Giselle Torres. State police say Juan Pablo Torres, who allegedly abducted Giselle Torres in Pennsylvania, may be headed to the New York City area. cbsloc.al/3i1iuMx
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The state has not only had a monopoly on the use of force, it has had a monopoly on what it means to create safety. The transformative justice movement has been challenging that monopoly for over a decade. /2
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It’s impossible to overstate how much good work is being produced within critical prison studies/history of the carceral state. All these arrived in the last few weeks. Congrats @lydiajean8 @orisanmi @mguariglia @EmilyMBrooksPhD
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This one goes out to all those who've warned me that Israel is the only state in the region that protects queers
Israeli security forces have admitted to deliberately threatening and outing queer Palestinians as a tactic to intimidate them into working as informants.
bit.ly/47xPtCZ
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This just in from New Haven Public Schools: teachers who test positive for COVID after visiting one of the 31 states considered hotspots "may face disciplinary action, up to and including termination." In other words, NHPS threatens to fire teachers who get COVID.
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Evolving out of the confluence of restorative justice, the anti-violence movement, and prison abolition, transformative justice (TJ) is modeled on indigenous responses to violence and was theorized, developed, and is led by women and transfolks of color. /3
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Many of the same police tearing down student encampments nationwide have been practicing on houseless encampments for years. The policing of housing insecurity laid the groundwork for this policing of dissent.
Philadelphia is shutting down a stretch of Kensington Avenue near Allegheny for seven hours on Wednesday.
This is part of the city's "encampment resolution."
The official release says press "will not be permitted" to enter the era.
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It is not a catch-all replacement for the criminal legal system. It is one seed--among many--from which we must grow a new world. See anything by @prisonculture esp transformharm.org/. Other leaders: @miamingus @thellpsx @ejeris @Estebantitos @alexispauline @adriennemaree /5
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I’ve never seen as many Vermonters assembled in one place as I do right now in Burlington
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The moral and political clarity of this moment is so overwhelming I am finding it difficult to breathe. It’s not everyday that atrocities are presaged with warnings. I rarely pray, but at this point I fear yelling “not in our names” over and over is only that—an unheard prayer
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TJ seeks alternatives to punitive justice, laying bare and addressing the underlying structures of power (patriarchy, racism, capitalism, homophobia, ableism, etc) that led to violence in the first place. It assumes that interpersonal harm is rooted in those larger structures. /4
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What we are seeing on campuses across the US is a coordinated act of retribution for 2020, meted out by cops who have been unleashed by college presidents who pretended not long ago that Black Lives Matter
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The entire cultural apparatus is working to tee up genocide.
You literally can’t make this up. They no longer want to honour Adania Shibli for her award winning novel A Minor Matter because *checks notes* it focuses on the murder of a Palestinian girl by Israeli soldiers. It’s almost like there’s a connection…
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This happened. This was the first thing I wrote after three years of medical leave and cancer treatment. Hard to process in this moment, but there's something to say about what can come out of sustained struggle--and all the support it takes to get through it.
The Louis Pelzer Memorial Award goes to Bench Ansfield @benchansfield for the best essay in American history by a graduate student #OAH20Awards
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For starters, see the new volume Beyond Survival akpress.org/beyond-survival.… and the how-to Fumbling Towards Repair akpress.org/fumbling-towards… and this toolkit from Creative Interventions creative-interventions.org/t…
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Delighted to share that my article "Broken Windows of the Bronx: Putting the Theory in Its Place" is the co-winner of the Arnold Hirsch Award for best article in a scholarly journal from the Urban History Association! Free from American Quarterly here: muse.jhu.edu/article/752331
Our UHA Virtual Award Ceremony is now available to view! Link to view: storymaps.arcgis.com/collect…
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First book, first garden! Just got my author copies of BORN IN FLAMES, out from @wwnorton on August 19th.
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Feels like Gen Z is just better at solidarity
Jenna Ortega reportedly asked to end her contract with the “Scream” franchise following Melissa Barrera getting fired.
Community note
Ortega has since confirmed that she will not be returning for 'Scream 7'. The current claim is that this is due to a scheduling conflict for 'Wednesday 2'
deadline.com/2023/11/jenna-…
variety.com/2023/film/news…
empireonline.com/movies/news/je
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CT ppl: Senator Chris Murphy is very close to backing a ceasefire. PRESSURE CHRIS MURPHY (202) 224-4041
My new Gaza statement:
"It's time for Israel's friends to recognize that the current approach is causing an unacceptable level of civilian harm and does not appear likely to achieve the goal of ending the threat from Hamas. I urge Israel to immediately reconsider its approach."
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Chairs to the front
WATCH: Among those arrested today were Noelle McAfee, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory University.
I’ve asked for a comment from Emory on this arrest, no word yet.
This video provided to us by an #Emory PHD student. You can hear him in this video. @ATLNewsFirst
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“We're fighting back for our own public space.”
Your subway commute may look a lot more pro-Palestine this morning, thanks to a group of guerrilla artists.
@adlankj was on the scene:
hellgatenyc.com/artists-repl…
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This is starting to feel real.
Elated & grateful to work with @dan_gerstle at Liveright/Norton! And ever appreciative of @EliseCapron
@LiverightPub @wwnorton
Thrilled to announce this book deal for the brilliant @benchansfield, to the similarly brilliant @dan_gerstle!
Bravo, bravo, bravo to you both!
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Before that, I'm heading to VT/NH for a 2-yr postdoc at the Dartmouth Society of Fellows. So thankful to have this time to work on my book in the woods. It feels like I won the lottery, but getting a good job shouldn't be a lottery. Neither should working where your people are.
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Y'all do realize that the "human shields" argument, taken to its conclusion, can only yield mass death? When any human being, any child, can be portrayed as a shelter for Hamas, Israel gets carte blanche to kill as many Palestinians as it deems necessary. It's limitless.
Horrible. Israel has an obligation to protect civilians under the laws of war. Hamas’s use of innocent Palestinians as human shields does not excuse bombing a location filled with civilians.
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To fellow Jews who remain reluctant to criticize the assault on Gaza: Listen when they tell you who they are. What other evidence do you need that the project of ethnic cleansing is underway?
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My book's not out yet but I just discovered that the Chicago Fed (?!) ran regressions on its central argument and found it to be correct. The book is out on August 19
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.…
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"Spoiler - not a comfortable read for landlords."
Arson as a business model - "The Business of Arson"
from @benchansfield
BORN IN FLAMES: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City via @wwnorton
Spoiler - not a comfortable read for landlords.
Should all in #Springst be gifted a copy?
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Out now in American Quarterly, my article on the intellectual origins of broken windows policing, a rollercoaster that runs thru the 1970s Bronx, the media's racialized construction of urban crisis, and Wilson & Kelling's willful manipulation of research. muse.jhu.edu/article/752331
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All I can say about this is that I got really sick in the middle of the program and very nearly didn't graduate. I simply wouldn't have without the constant support from family--chosen & not--especially @nataliyabrgnsky without whom not a word would have made it on paper.
I know I’m gushing now but *listen* @benchansfield is the winner of the 2021 Field Prize, one of two university-wide awards given to top dissertations!!
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Join the Abolition Collaboratory for a conversation on how abolitionist activism in the streets should shape abolition studies. Featuring Derecka Purnell @dereckapurnell, Andrea James, Beth Whalley, Eli Patterson, & moderated by the brilliant @deanzacook. May 3rd at 2:30 on Zoom
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Writers, academics, and culture workers, sign this. We make each other brave.
writersagainstthewarongaza.c…
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See also this piece by the org I work with (which is in hibernation), Philly Stands Up. academia.edu/11884488/_How_W…
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Envisioning a Judaism dislodged from Zionism is far from new, but this is the first time I'm seeing its possibilities in technicolor. This fugitive Judaism is the only one that has any meaning to me.
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Can't express how much this review of BORN IN FLAMES by Brian Goldstone in the NYT means to me.
Goldstone's THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US is among the most important books about housing in the 21st cent. Thank you @brian_goldstone for this stunning review! BORN IN FLAMES is out now!
During the 1970s, an arson wave ravaged poor neighborhoods across the US. Residents were blamed.
In reality, landlords—paid by insurers and enabled by the state—drove this arson-for-profit epidemic.
I reviewed @benchansfield's revelatory BORN IN FLAMES:
nytimes.com/2025/08/20/books…
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Burnout can feel like a blunt tool for naming the toll that racial capitalism takes on our bodies and minds. But locating it in the infrastructure of the city reveals a term imprinted with a violent truth: socially-differentiated exhaustion, even destruction, can be profitable.
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There is only one data point you need to know right now. Four out of five starving people worldwide are in Gaza. For those of us whose tax dollars are funding this, you can either name it what it is - forced starvation by design - or you are complicit. It's simple.
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Buckle up. Today is about to get gross af. This is the march they’re paying ppl $250 to attend
Tomorrow’s Pro-Genocide March in DC has announced its guest speakers including racists like Michael Rapaport & fake progressives like Van Jones.
This anti-Palestinian march, helped by the US govt, expects to gather a large crowd in support of 75 years of apartheid & occupation.
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Growing up, there were few things worse than being a Holocaust denier. It sickens me to watch fellow Jews refuse to believe their eyes.
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I can't wait to join all the rad students and faculty in the History Dept at @TempleUniv. Philly, see you soon 💜
It was a tough few years on the market. Huge gratitude for those who sustained me & solidarity with those feeling the sting of market precarity.
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I'm sorry, we can't do hybrid events anymore to accommodate those with disabilities...Oh, you want to tamp down on democracy? Zoom away!!
Joe Biden’s top advisors are worried the Democratic convention could erupt in protests — so they’re pushing to move it semi-online politico.com/news/magazine/2…
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Connecticut public schools are so overwhelmed with covid numbers, they've discontinued contact tracing and yet are proceeding with school tomorrow. Incredible that I can still be shocked by policymakers' abdication of responsibility, and yet here we are
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Overwhelmed and grateful to the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize committee -- @ashoncrawley @arsavium and @gnebgne -- for this honor! And huge congrats to the winner, M. Benitez of UMD!!
As someone whose own teaching has been shaped by @benchansfield’s research + writing, I am overjoyed that the @AmerStudiesAssn has named Bench Ansfield the 2021 Finalist for the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize for Best Dissertation in the field of American Studies. So proud! ❤️🔥#ASA2021
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Shame on the IDF, shame on the NYT & CNN, shame on my family members who make excuses for genocide, who have spouted genocidal ideas as long as I can remember, who raised me to believe Israel was the antidote to genocide, and who harness our ancestors' pain toward that same end
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My review of @DestinKJenkins' spectacular Bonds of Inequality is out today in Reviews in American History. The book is essential reading for anyone interested in racial capitalism & contemporary cities. Feel free to DM for a pdf
muse.jhu.edu/article/805902
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With the Jewish and academic calendars synced, today I’m beginning the new year at Harvard’s Charles Warren Center as an American Democracy Fellow. Excited to join the good folks at CWC and grateful for this lifeline as academia caves in.
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Feeling very fortunate that Lisa Lowe and Michael Denning are steering the ship I find myself on right now
Yale American Studies faculty *unanimously* voted to support:
- “A one-year extension for our current graduate students”
- “A special, one-time, emergency allocation by the Yale Corporation to the Yale Graduate School to cover some of the Grad School's emergency costs.”
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I'll be speaking at The New School's Heilbroner Center for Capitalism Studies a week from today -- next Thursday night at 6pm. Come through!
RSVP here:
event.newschool.edu/borninfl…
ALT Text reads: Born in Flames: The Alchemy of Race and Risk in American Cities Thursday, February 15, 2024, 6:00PM to 8:00PM (EST) The Robert L. Heilbroner Center of Capitalism Studies and NSSR’s Historical Studies program are pleased to co-host Dartmouth Society of Fellows’ Dr. Bench Ansfield. This talk frames the 1970s wave of landlord arson in the Bronx and beyond as a critical window into late-twentieth-century transformations in racial capitalism. Why did Black and Brown neighborhoods across the United States go up in flames in the 1970s? Popular memory confuses this conflagration with the 1960s uprisings, yet these fires were lit not for protest, but for profit, most of which flowed into the ironically named FIRE industries—finance, insurance, and real estate. Wolff Conference Room D1103 6 East 16th Street New York, NY 10003
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27% of those hospitalized for Covid at Yale-New Haven Hospital were vaccinated. 27%.
Yet it's full speed ahead on the semester, with universities in total denial that Delta is not the same virus we had planned for in the spring. This will be a disaster.
newhavenindependent.org/inde…
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"In its most capacious vision, 'everyone for everyone' can be read as an abolitionist call—a way to think about safety grounded in solidarity and mutuality, raised in terrifying and precarious circumstances."
Read this piercing, urgent piece by @dnbrgr
jewishcurrents.org/the-aboli…
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Was so surprised to learn that my critical history of insurance received this recognition. Honored and grateful @TheBHCNews
Please join @TheBHCNews in congratulating @benchansfield for their outstanding #dissertation and presentation:
“Born in Flames: #Arson, #RacialCapitalism, and the Reinsuring of the #Bronx in the Late Twentieth Century” is the #BHC2022 #BHCKroossPrize winner.
#insurance #bizhis
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I know we’re all tired, but the bombing has not stopped, the siege remains in effect, and our work remains as urgent as ever
After Israel bombed Gaza's last operational flour mill yesterday, the entire population of Gaza, including 1.1 million children, is at "immediate" risk of starvation
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I just combined all the chapters of my dissertation into one file and it's exactly 420 pages. High school me is BEAMING
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Dartmouth & Upper Valley folks -- come out on Tuesday at 1:30 to support grad student workers demanding a living wage
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PHILLY!
Join Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and me for the launch of BORN IN FLAMES!
8/21 at @UncleBobbies, 7pm
Tickets here: eventbrite.com/e/uncle-bobbi…
@KeeangaYamahtta
ALT Flyer for book launch event featuring author Bench Ansfield and interlocutor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
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This article shows how property insurers’ responses to the 60s uprisings helped set the course for US cities in the decades to come. Although the damage was minimal compared to an event like Hurricane Betsy in ’65, insurers worked themselves into a frenzy.
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Less than one week until the publication of BORN IN FLAMES! It makes a huge difference if you *preorder* before 8/19! Get the book from any outlet and my press will send you these 4 beautiful stickers once you fill out the form copied below.
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Another starred review, this one from Publishers Weekly, for Born in Flames. Out August 19th. wwnorton.com/books/978132409…
★ Bench Ansfield debuts with a riveting and meticulous chronicle of the wave of arsons-for-profit that burned through America’s cities in the 1970s. It unearths the tenant-organized activism, in collaboration with local officials, that finally ended the fires. @wwnorton buff.ly/4QqhOHy
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BORN IN FLAMES is a NYT Editors' Choice title
ALT Screenshot of the NYT website featuring Born in Flames by Bench Ansfield and Black Moses by Caleb Gayle
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Despite being branded as a racial justice measure, this insurance initiative benefited nobody more than absentee landlords, setting the stage for further ruin.
Sorry about the paywall--DM me for a copy!!
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A "young historian’s superlative debut" says this starred review of my book from Kirkus. It's the first (!) review of my book and ofc I'm over here rejoicing in the idea that somebody still thinks I'm young
kirkusreviews.com/book-revie…
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Its self-immolation seems pretty rapid to me! It only took a few weeks to undo decades of base building
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This needs to be bigger news. Macron calls for a ceasefire.
Macron has called on the world to "work toward a cease-fire" in Gaza.
bit.ly/46692ke
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But it wasn’t a broken window that drew passersby into the fray; it was the spectacle of Stanford researchers destroying a car in the middle of campus. In place of Z's critique of inequality, W+K invented a broken window and invested it with the ability to spur vandalism. /13
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Full essay in the Chronicle: chronicle.com/article/schola…
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