Holy smokes

What a week🫨 Last night in Philly I got to watch the livestream of the @latimesfob awards, where Born in Flames won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History. It was announced Oscars-style—really gets the heart racing. I was grateful to be with dear friends who know how to shriek.

Good news in ghastly times

I don’t feel like enough people are aware that the School District of Philadelphia is planning to close 20 schools and relocate 8 additional schools. If this plan is approved, about 5,000 students would see their schools closed and another 2,800 would have their school location moved.

In our latest, we speak with Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Craig Gilmore about the rapid escalation of police forces and carceral logics on US streets and why abolition is the only way www.patreon.com/posts/149118...

“That children and their parents would risk retribution under these conditions to speak up is a testament both to how courageous they are and how abysmal the conditions of this place is,” he said.

What are the most hopeful stories you know about US history? The ones that make you feel like another world is possible. Teaching 10th graders the truth about this country’s past + present is heavy, and I need to give my students (and myself) more reasons to stay hopeful.

Excited to offer this teachers writing workshop for educators to come together (virtually) to reflect, learn, and write about what’s going on—and to work toward producing a piece for publication. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

"[P]ublic housing was the only type of housing spared by the inferno… What would it mean to take that finding seriously?" @benchansfield.bsky.social on implications of the 1970s arson wave for the housing justice movement today: www.hpeproject.org/blog/firestorm

In disbelief. The NYT named Born in Flames one of 100 Notable Books of 2025

U.S. District Judge April Perry says it comes down to a "credibility determination." "I simply cannot credit [the Trump administration's] declarations to the extent they contradict state and local law enforcement. … DHS' perception of events are simply unreliable."

NYC come thru!! I'll be doing two BORN IN FLAMES launch events next week 10/16 and 10/18. Plz spread the word! (links to follow)

By leaning on insurance-based solutions to deep-seated societal problems, California has put itself on a path toward repeating the mistakes of the past, warns Temple University historian @benchansfield.bsky.social. zps.la/4nuhIdv

After the Palisades & Eaton fires, insurers leaned on a program designed to respond to the '60s uprisings. The climate crisis is being hedged with the same faulty tools created for the urban crisis. I wrote about that inheritance for @zocalopublicsquare.bsky.social and @sfchronicle.com

A man was just chased and arrested outside of the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago. When legal observers from the National Lawyers Guild asked why, an agent threatened to arrest them too.

🚨 New directive NSPM-7 targets "anti-capitalism," “anti-Christian,” and “anti-American" opinions as indicators of extremist violence, authorizing an army of 4,000 counter-terrorism officers to prevent crimes that haven't happened: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nsp...

Trump just signed an illegal executive order designed to target his political opposition by designating them terrorists and using the DOJ, IRS, FBI, and the JTTF to investigate and charge liberal organizations, funders, members, and protesters. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

How can the housing struggles of the 1970s guide the tenant movement in the present? @city.bsky.social breaks it down in this electrifying review of BORN IN FLAMES for @newrepublic.com If you want to better understand why cities chose police funding over habitability, read this.

“But what makes this parallel feel most apt is how nervous I am about drawing it.” - M. Gessen www.nytimes.com/2025/09/21/o...

what ezra doesn't seem willing to accept is that charlie kirk was part of a political movement that does not think that "we are going to have to live here with each other" and is fact very interested in the elimination and/or subjugation of many, many people

From the 2024 study that was just removed from DOJ’s website: “Militant, nationalistic, violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.” newrepublic.com/post/200537/...

"I just want to say, go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine," "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder at the #Emmys

Photo captured just before Sal drooled all over the book review of Born in Flames in the Sunday NYT

America is now a place where a prominent cable news host can openly call for homeless people to be murdered — and face zero consequences.

hi, cis folks! the WSJ endangered trans lives with false reporting yesterday. it’s still accepted as truth by many, regardless of it being false. the article’s still up with a little note. it needs full retraction. it's not even a phone call—it's email. you can do this. contact info below.🧵⬇️

A script for making these calls: 5calls.org/issue/gender...

hi, cis folks! if you said you’d stand with trans people, we need you now. the FY26 budget bill gets a vote by 9/30. the GOP wants to jam a ban on federal funding for ALL health services that provide trans care for ANY AGE. we need you to call senators: reps.fyi more info & script downthread.🧵

BORN IN FLAMES is a NYT Editors' Choice title

When the Bronx Burned, Tenants Died and Landlords Got Rich “Born in Flames,” by the historian Bench Ansfield, recounts how the wave of urban arson in the 1970s devastated poor communities while enriching building owners. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/b...

Thanks Lit Hub! lithub.com/what-should-...

“The daily cost of the D.C. troop deployment is more than six times what it would cost to operate affordable housing for D.C.’s entire unhoused population. The government’s priorities could not be more clear," said @hannahomestead.bsky.social of @nationalpriorities.bsky.social

The astounding triumph Born in Flames by @benchansfield.bsky.social is out! The rare work of history that changes common sense - in this case the burning of the Bronx and other cities in the 70s - while also making revelatory moves for theory and historiography. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/b...

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 US in the 21st cent. Thanks @brian-goldstone.bsky.social for this stunning review. BORN IN FLAMES is out now!

During the 1970s, an arson wave ravaged poor communities across the US. Some lost 80% of their housing. Residents were blamed. In reality, landlords—paid by insurers and enabled by the state—drove this arson-for-profit epidemic. 

I reviewed @benchansfield.bsky.social's revelatory BORN IN FLAMES:

Exhilarating for BORN IN FLAMES to receive a feature review in the pages of the @newyorker.com. Immerwahr and I come to different conclusions about racial capitalism and the burning years, but I hope our debate will be fruitful for others. -->

Getting "greedy landlords" printed in the NY Post is surreal. Never thought I'd be in the tabloids.

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.

“The hand that torched the Bronx and scores of other cities,” Ansfield writes, “was that of a landlord impelled by the market and guided by the state.” Dan Piepenbring on Born in Flames, by Bench Ansfield (@benchansfield.bsky.social).

The theme for my 10th grade English class will be “on being human.” We’re reading Sula, Parable of the Sower, There, There, and Macbeth. Seeking short texts (poetry, essays, short stories, etc) to read during the first week to introduce the theme. Drop your favorite on being human texts please!

The BORN IN FLAMES stickers are here and they’re beautiful! Made in collaboration with my dear friend, Jenna Peters-Golden, + an original by Mary Tremonte @justseeds.bsky.social, these will be sent to you free if you order BORN IN FLAMES by Aug 19th and submit here: tinyurl.com/4nx7rcv8

Excited to announce a sticker giveaway for BORN IN FLAMES. Preorder by 8/19, fill out this form, and receive 4 beautiful stickers for free!! Art made in collaboration with Jenna Peters-Golden + a Mary Tremonte original @justseeds.bsky.social tinyurl.com/4nx7rcv8

This new policy basically means all immigrants have no due process rights and can be detained indefinitely. Once again like the student detentions and like CECOT, the Trump administration is using immigration detention, which both parties built up, as a testing ground for its authoritarianism...

This is the one that breaks it. What even is the point of Congress if the legislature can pass a budget but the executive doesn’t have to follow it? We officially don’t have three branches anymore. We have a solitary tyrant.

First book, first garden! Just got my author copies of BORN IN FLAMES, out from @wwnorton.com on August 19th.

How do I teach if parents can opt students out of knowing that I exist?

IDF soldiers have now themselves admitted they have been ordered to murder aid-seekers in Gaza. Truly an atrocity built on atrocity. www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...