Rating: 
Summary: Good overview of the WTC story - some photos would help
Review: I found the first half of this book a fascinating and detailed account of the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy and its immediate aftermath. The book takes you many places the news accounts didn't, and reveals some pretty amazing facts (e.g., there were actually people inside the buildings who survived the collapse). The second half, where he delves into the bureaucracy surrounding the demolition and recovery efforts is interesting but less dramatic.The book has one serious flaw though - other than a crude map of the site inside the cover, there are no photographs or illustrations at all. Even just a ten-page insert with some photos of the key people and places he describes would be a huge improvement. Trying to tell a story of this magnitude with text alone is a noble effort, but it falls short.
Rating:
Summary: Good overview of the WTC story - some photos would help
Review: I found the first half of this book a fascinating and detailed account of the 9/11 World Trade Center tragedy and its immediate aftermath. The book takes you many places the news accounts didn't, and reveals some pretty amazing facts (e.g., there were actually people inside the buildings who survived the collapse). The second half, where he delves into the bureaucracy surrounding the demolition and recovery efforts is interesting but less dramatic. The book has one serious flaw though - other than a crude map of the site inside the cover, there are no photographs or illustrations at all. Even just a ten-page insert with some photos of the key people and places he describes would be a huge improvement. Trying to tell a story of this magnitude with text alone is a noble effort, but it falls short.
Rating: 
Summary: An incredible true story
Review: I found William Langewiesche's true story from ground zero an incredible page turner that pulls no punches in detailing the behind the scenes power struggles for control of the site and the thefts of merchandise by FDNY firefighters. Finaly someone has come out and spoken the truth about 9-11. It is a must read for everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Langewiesche scores again
Review: I have been a devoted fan of this journalist since he wrote "Cutting for Sign" and "Sahara Unveiled." This is not a reporter who envisions himself as a poet. Langewiesche doesn't hold back, and he seemingly doesn't care if his subjects like him at the end of the day. Which is why he earned the scorn of sycophants like Michiko Kakutani at the NYTimes, who called this work "coldblooded." If only more journalists were this "coldblooded," perhaps we could once again believe in the media! Read this book. It's a breath of fresh air after all the sanctimonious, self-indulgent wallowing in victimization we've endured. Then, go directly to the books I mentioned earlier and find out why this guy is the real deal.
Rating:
Summary: Unvarnished... and well told!
Review: I originally bought this book after learning that some segments of society were trying to ban it (nothing gets me interested quicker than that). Langewiesche bends over backwards to be fair and impartial, and he details a fascinating, compelling story of how a disparate group of civil service bureaucrats, police officials, fire fighters, engineers and construction civilians came together to solve a set of inconceivable problems. He doesn't create any new heroes, and he may have even brought some of the more alleged heroes of 9/11 down a peg or two, but he never trashes anyone. He lays out the facts as facts and links his own opinions with personal observations. That's more important to me than any patriotic mythology.
Rating:
Summary: If you read one book about 9/11, make it this one
Review: I read this book as it was initially serialized in the "Atlantic Monthly." I found it absolutely riveting. As I watched the progess of the deconstruction of the towers on CNN in the months following that terrible day, I never gave a thought to the enormity of the project. One can easily understand that building the towers was an act of genius combined with enormous muscle, but it never initially occurred to me that the unbuilding of the towers required the same combination of brains and brawn. As the New York Times reported, Langwiesche tells us the story of a job done quickly and well. Amazingly, no one died during the recovery, despite working in a jungle of torn steel and noxious gasses for nearly nine months. That the towers were taken apart so well is a result of the leadership of a handful of men. You probably never heard of these individuals in the media. Indeed, if you had, the job would probably still be going on today, since they kept their egos apart from the project. Along the way, Langwiesche destroys some shibboleths--primarily the idea, driven by the media, that made the words "fireman" and "saint" interchangable. Some were, such as Father Mychal, the FDNY chaplain that died giving last rites at the scene. Undoubtedly, most firemen behaved selflessly, rushing up the stairs without a thought of their own safety. However, the firemen in this book emerge as humans, rather than saints. Understandably, while searching for human remains, the firemen gave greater deference to their own than to "civilians." Equally understandably, such an attitude angered the civilians and the cops on the site. Langwiesche also demonstrates that, like any large group of individuals, some behaved with utter selfishness. The police at Ground Zero chortled in the face of the firemen when a ruined fire-truck was discovered with several hundred dollars of designer clothes in its cab. The inescapable conclusion, resisted by the firemen, was that some of the FDNY had actually looted the underground mall while the towers burned. Remarkably, however, almost everyone involved in the cleanup put their egos aside in order to clear Ground Zero as quickly as possible. The result spited the terrorists. It demonstrated that, no matter what destruction they might inflict upon us, Americans will simply stand up, dust their clothes off, clean up, and rebuild. That is the ultimate act of defiance.
Rating: 
Summary: Reprehensible - From Timewalker, Long Beach, New York
Review: I was amongst a small group of forensic physicists/archaeologists studying the effects of the Tower collapse along Liberty Street and near Ten House. After a year of balking at FEMA video showing the cab of 4 Truck empty during its discovery and excavation, Mr. L. finally admitted in late 2003 that he was in fact not present in New York City during the December 2001 excavation of 4 Truck. This did not prevent him from presenting, in his book, his firsthand eyewitness account of 4 Truck having been stuffed to the gills with stolen jeans, folded and tagged and, according to mr. L's own forensic archaeological interpretation, forming the basis for a broad accusation of looting, by firefighters, as the Towers burned. Much as FEMA video of 4 Truck, showing a complete absence of Mr.L's observed stolen items, proved no obstacle to his accusation of looting... Nor did the April 2002 discovery of 4 Crew's remains at the South Tower elevator banks, with their Hurst cutting tool... nor the two women survivors cut free by 4 Crew, with their Hurst cutting tool. Mr. L. just had to tell his tall, and controversial, and money-making tale - with no indication whatsoever that he gave even an atom of thought to the pain he inflicted upon the widows and children of 4 Truck. I will add that before the Federal government came in with an acceptable protocol against a "dirty bomb" attack, I worked briefly with the crew most likely to be first responders. At one point these men were told that this was not what they had signed on for; and anyone with small children was practically ordered to transfer to another unit. They all stayed. Every one of them. All of the FDNY, PAPD and NYPD people I have worked with (add to this the "civilians" who ran toward the fires, and assisted in the rescue operation)convince me that this city and this country have more good people than bad, and that whatever challenges lie ahead, it is the good people all around us who virtually assure that we shall prevail. During this very same time period, having observed from within how the publishing industry coddled Mr. L., even after it was revealed beyond all serious dispute that he had lied about 4 truck, I have become equally convinced that the only truth Jayson Blair (of "Burning Down My Master's House" fame)ever told was that he found himself being singled out and punished in public for what was, in his industry, "simply business as usual."
Rating:
Summary: Delivers on many levels
Review: I would agree with most of the reviews and say this is a very informative little book that hooks you after the first few pages. It may be a little short, but nevertheless American Ground is jammed with facts and observations that reveal a side of the World Trade Center disaster that most have not seen before. And as one can surmise from some of the reviews, parts of this book are controversial. Most of the book deals with the day-to-day realities of cleaning up one of the most challenging disaster sites ever. Included are personal struggles like the effort required for "spelunking" deep into the ruins 6 stories below street level, which Langewiesche experienced firsthand. Also illuminated are some larger, site-wide problems including the threat posed by the massive tanks of Freon entombed in the far reaches of the ruins. In better times they served to cool the WTC, but during the clean up they threatened the lives of workers above. The nagging fear was that the odorless Freon would escape and worm its way up around the workers robbing them of oxygen quicker than they could run away. This was one of many dangers workers stoically accepted in order to get the job done. In addition to the logistical aspects of the cleanup, Langewiesche does a great job animating for us the personalities that tackled the disaster with, as he postulates, a particularly American, individualistic, can-do attitude. The book's controversy arises when Langewiesche unflinchingly examines behavioral issues at the site in what I found to be the most interesting parts of the book. He reveals the ugly tribalism that unpleasantly divided the rescue workers into mainly three groups: construction workers, police, and firemen. But more controversially, he examines the mythology of heroism that surrounded New York Firemen after 9/11, and as is usually the case with myths, the perception and the reality do not coincide. Langewiesche offers what I thought to be strong anecdotal and circumstantial evidence suggesting that workers of all types, including firemen, routinely looted the WTC site. One such story is of the recovery of a fire truck buried with dozens of GAP jeans piled neatly by size order in the cab. This would suggest that some firemen looted even before the collapse of the first tower. If this story is true, it's fairly damning (a previous reviewer with a brother in law in the FDNY suggests it's not). Since Langewiesche had access to the highest authorities at the site, he probably corroborated this and other stories with someone in the know, which would lead me to believe that at least a version of this story is probably true. In addition, Langewiesche is a respected journalist (the reason he was given full access to the site in the first place), which would make me doubt he had an ax to grind or was just trying to be sensational. With these accounts and others like the "firemen's riot" (you'll have to read the book for that one) Langewiesche brings the hero worship surrounding the firemen back down to earth. I think an important distinction to keep in mind here is that Langewiesche does not say the firemen are not brave or noble, but rather they are not the perfect embodiment of bravery or nobility that the surrounding idolatry may suggest. In other words: the mythology of fireman heroism is not 100% false, but rather it's just not 100% true. They're human like the rest of us---prone to weakness. Implicit in Langewiesche's analysis is that mythology is not as dangerous to those distanced from it, but more invasive for those at the center---living the myth. A similar process occurs when movie stars develop distorted views of themselves because they are constantly told how they are special. Myth influences their behavior. Likewise, some firemen were perceived to have developed an inflated sense of entitlement. Other workers said the tight FDNY community recoiled into a narcissism of grief so that their anguish and concerns superceded the needs and suffering of the whole. Some complained that firemen treated non-FDNY dead with a hasty, "bag'em and tag'em" attitude while giving the utmost respect and attention to their own dead. And Langewiesche suspects that the broad focus on FDNY loses made it harder for firemen to move through the grieving process because the attention led them to indulge their emotions longer than was needed and caused them to lose some of their objectivity. All of this undermined the clean up effort making it more difficult than was necessary. (If I may indulge myself for just a little. . .Reading this book while my country is on the verge of waging war, I can't help extending this line of analysis to the current stirrings of American Nationalism. Similar to how a number of firemen internalized the mythology surrounding them, nationalistic myths have subtly shaped the opinions of many Americans. Many are convinced that America can do no wrong---it may make mistakes, they say, but its intentions are always pure. They seemingly are unable or unwilling to put down the myths they filter the world through. Similar to the hero worship, it's not that American foreign policy is 100% unjust; rather it's not 100% just. This might seem obvious, but many people have a really hard time acknowledging any injustice or immorality in American foreign policy or how it may do more to cause many problems we face today rather than solve them. I'd love to go on, but Ill have to find a book on this subject and go nuts in my review.) Overall, American Ground delivers unique information on several levels. With absorbing anecdotes, interesting factoids about 9/11 itself and the cleanup, and penetrating analysis of some large issues---all delivered with good writing---Langewiesche gives us a good read.
Rating:
Summary: Just the Facts
Review: If you buy just one book regarding the WTC recovery - buy this one! It is extraordinary author's telling of the facts without judgment, hero worship, or melodrama. My wife and I both read it.
Rating:
Summary: Trying to Grasp the Event
Review: If you, like me, do not live in NYC and are trying to grasp what happened in lower Manhatten that day, then you should read this book. It fills in a lot of the blanks.
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