Formidable ... When Ansfield filed their dissertation on this topic, in 2021, the response was rapturous. Prizes were heaped at their feet: best dissertation in American studies, in American history, at Yale (co-won), and so on. Reading their book, which is even sharper, you can see why. It’s a deft, at times brilliant history ... Ansfield’s great achievement is following the money ... Ansfield discusses these phenomena with admirable sensitivity.
An eye-opening, myth-busting analysis ... Ansfield makes a compelling argument that the essential ingredients stimulating the conflagrations were government-sponsored policies 'redlining' and cancellation of coverage by insurance companies that had left inner cities uninsured or underinsured for property damage.
For a book that is, at base, a story of the serpentine ways of the insurance industry, Born in Flames includes arresting images ... Ansfield has found a way to emphasize the moral in 'moral hazard.'
