American Ground

"The one book to read, if you're only reading one." --"Detroit Free Press" "Slim but powerful . . . truth, unclouded by sentiment." --"The New York Times Book Review" "One of the most compelling, dramatic, and uplifting pieces of writing you are likely ever to read." --"St. Louis Post-Dispatch" "Extraordinary . . . An amazing piece of journalism, full of colorful characters and astonishing scenes." --Peter Carlson, "The Washington Post" "Says more about our essential character than a thousand maudlin tributes." --Boris Kachka, "New York"

AMERICAN GROUND - one of the most controversial pieces of 9/11 publishing - is the result of Langewiesche's nine months in the Dantesque world of Ground Zero. With 'truth, unclouded by sentiment' (NEW YORK TIMES), he documented the lives of the engineers, labourers, rescue workers and city officials as they brought order to a land of chaos, anatomising the physical details of the collapse and revealing the contests of politics and personality that were its aftershock.