Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating insights
Review: Langewiesche's book is a result of brilliant reporting and essentially tells us, as the title says, how the debris from the 9-11 tragedy was dealt with. He describes with clarity the utter chaos at the site and the noisy democracy that prevailed and that allowed a small organization called the DDC (Department of Design and Construction) to direct recovery efforts. He also details the personality clashes between the different factions at the site-an inevitable result of working under extreme, trying conditions.Langewiesche's descriptions of the ruins (along with the wonderful pictures) are chilling: "Most of the rooms (of the Deutsche Bank dining area) had been unoccupied at the time of the attack, and were set for lunch-with fresh place mats, plates, and utensils, and sets of stemmed glasses, some of which had been capsized and broken by the pressure waves and lay now as they had fallen, like everything else here, under a feathery gauze of the Twin Towers' remains." His account of the last minutes of American Airlines Flight 11 and its last conversations with an air-traffic controller in Boston Center are eerie and scary. The book describes the recovery effort and all the personalities who made it happen, wonderfully. I found myself admiring the soft-spoken demolition expert from North Carolina, David Griffin who, true to the American method, just showed up at the site, proved his merit, and got the job. I was comforted in a strange sort of way to read that most of the steel recovered from the WTC site was sold as scrap and trucked away to countries such as China, who would put the steel to good use and recycle it. As Langewiesche puts it, "It was a strangely appropriate fate for these buildings, named for just this sort of trade." In the end, 1.5 million tons of debris was hauled away from the World Trade Center site. The scale alone is daunting enough. That the recovery effort was carried out efficiently and with respect for the dead, is a triumph in an otherwise trying time. Langewiesche's book pays well-deserved homage to the people and the institutions that made it happen.
Rating:
Summary: "Do You See the Light?"
Review: Langewiesche's narrative of the clean-up after the WTC tragedy wanders, a bit like a victim hit on the head by falling debris: deeply stunned, wandering from detail to searing detail, each like one of a series of snapshots burned into the brain, but not in a clear order. He's a gifted writer and brings the intensity of the thoughts and feelings of the cleanup crew to full life. The most stunning moments in the book, though, stem from his unique access to stories not I had not previously heard reported. Like Frank Lombardi, the Transit Authority manager who was sitting at his desk on the 72nd floor of the North Tower when it was hit, helped show people to safety, and was *in* the WTC 3 building (the Marriott Hotel), when the South Tower collapsed overhead. Or the story of Genelle Guzman, who dropped 30 stories as the building collapsed, but survived, one of only two civilians to be pulled alive from the rubble. After 27 hours trapped with her legs crushed and pinned under rubble, she was rescued when she heard a search party, calling "do you see the light?" In the end Langewiesche's wandering narrative left me unsure of what his 'theme' was - what I was supposed to feel. Maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe it's just the way it was. Maybe we will never know how we are supposed to feel about this one.
Rating: 
Summary: American Ground
Review: Langewiesche's suggestions of firefighters stealing merchandise while the two towers burned is sickening. This author shows his complete contempt and lack of respect for the fallen firefighters and their families.
Rating:
Summary: a towering edifice
Review: like some stylistic offspring of john mcphee and joan didion, this will be the one book that emerges from the 9-11 publishing rubble as the one account to remember, to recommend to others. he excavates the truth, reaching into the maw of confusing emotions and conflicting interests, and piece by piece, just like the diesel dinosaurs stripping away the ruins, he uncovers the reality compacted beneath the pile. well-reasoned, sobering, powerful, this is war reportage at its very finest.
Rating:
Summary: Plain and Simple
Review: Real Simple! The North Tower was hit by the first plane at 8:48 am. Langewiesche states in this book that it was hit at 8:46am. This is one of numerous errors. This guy can't even get times and dates right. So go ahead and believe him when he says Firefighters risked they're lives to loot jeans from the Gap. He even said himself that he wasn't there when the truck was found and he based the story on rumors,RUMORS! GREAT JOB FACT CHECKING GUYS! Any intelligent reader will take some time to look at the facts and see the real truth.
Rating:
Summary: A THREATENING BOOK OF TRUTHS
Review: Right from the anxiety-ridden tv reporting on the morning of 9-11, through the labeling of almost everyone on the scene as 'heroes', the black side of our recovery efforts was evident. Langewiesche's book, AMERICAN GROUND, has deftly plowed over the aspects of some proclaimed heroes' efforts that most prefer to forget or deny. The shame within the current wish for 'pure-good-only' to exist lies way too deeply in our willingness to almost beg for deception re our recovery. AMERICAN GROUND gives a good and more than fair accounting of the many shades of black and gray which were in plain view to many of us--not without grief, both in forefront, and, in the background.
Rating:
Summary: Bravo for a Book that Finally Tells it Like It Is
Review: Thank God somebody finally wrote something that isn't drowned in all this "Rah-Rah, God Bless America, Everybody is a Hero, Must Make Everybody Feel Good, Self Glorifying" crap. I used to work for Deutsche Bank and everyone there knew how the entire building they had across from Ground Zero was completely looted. It sikened me how nobody really spoke up about it. It was like heaven forbid anybody point any fingers at the people who have wrapped themselves up in hero worship so much that they can't admit that anyone of them did anything wrong. I remember talking to a couple of bar owners in the area that was part of the closed off area around ground zero. Each of them told me how they were completely stripped of not only all there inventory but also furniture, pictures and televisions. This book is at long last a look into what really happened down at ground zero that nobody wants to talk about. If you like your desription about what happened down at the pit "sugar-coated" like most NYFD and other workers do then this book isn't for you. But if you want unadulterated honesty then this is required reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Interesting-
Review: The tragedy of September 11th has been brought to a new light! Very interest and amazing facts. I live in New York City and this book made me think some of the information that was given might not have been the truth. Quite interesting- A must read.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: There have been many books published in the last three yers about the building of the WTC, the attack of 9/11, the collapse of the building, the architecture, the decisions, the rebuilding, and so forth, but only one book about what went on at the site immediately following the collapse of the towers.
William Langewiesche is an excellent essayist and reporter, and managed to both situate himself in the middle of the rebuilding- the only writer to do so- and to be a neutral enough observer that he was able to tell the story from all perspectives. The public story- the heroism of the firefighters and police, the harmony on the site- dosn't quite hold up in Langewiesche's telling. We see internecine fighting, looting, distrust, and outright hostilkity between different groups competing for control of the site and for glory in the minds of the public.
But we also see an extraordinary effort by almost all concerned, and an operation in which public and private organizations came together to do an amazing job of cleaning up the site in record time. We also see the City of New York rising to the challange, brushing off Federal attempts to control the site, knowing that the city has more experience as disaster recovery and cleanup in its numerous contractors and building officials than the whole of FEMA. City officials and contractors came together and mapped out strategies and divided up work without waiting for approval from higher up authorities.
An excellent piece of reporting and interpreting. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Powerful, Sobering Analysis of the 9/11 Aftermath
Review: There is no other book that I've read so far, that deconstructs 9/11 and its chaotic aftermath with such honest and probing insight than this book by Langewiesche. The book is worth its value alone by its finely reported details and exceptionally calibrated character sketches of the men involved with the recovery effort. But it is Langewiesche's unflinching and brave observations that puts this book in a different class from other 9/11 books. Langewiesche had the privilege of being the only reporter allowed at the Ground Zero during the recovery effort, and so had the unique opportunity to witness everything firsthand. And as a witness, his accounts cut through the usual maudlin kitsch of the reports we're used to having from the media - the crying firemen, and cinematic shots of tattered American flag unfurling in the clouds of smoke, etc. Langewiesche probes the darker matters at hand: the curious fascination with such a calamity by the members involved in the recovery effort, the altruistic motive of the workers quickly turning ugly and partisan, and the self-righteous, self-pitying, and spotlight-seeking hubris of many firefighters that threatened at times to slow down the effort. Langewiesche does praise the heart and efforts of the firefighters. But by cutting through the sentimental construct of the typical images of 9/11 (especially the images of firefighter-the-saint), he reveals a true and gripping account of the chaotic politics at work on the Ground Zero. This book feels bigger than the immediate issue it deals with (the recovery effort) because the impulses and motives of the people involved with the recovery effort are hot-wired to something universal. Langewiesche examines why some men thrive in such situations while others wilt. Why, despite the horrific calamity of such a disaster, men are seduced and fascinated by its terrible sublimity. This book not only gives a most vivid and searing account of 9/11, it searches through and navigates the darker chambers of our hearts. I don't have enough superlatives for this terrific, monumental, and ultimately moving book.
| 
