September 11: World Trade Center

The unsung-and revealing-story of the Herculean effort to finish the dismantling that terrorism began Unlike any other reporter, William Langewiesche has had unrestricted access to Ground Zero and the people involved in the cleanup. He has literally followed in the footsteps of engineers, "deconstruction" workers, firemen, and city officials as they tackle the mind-numbing task of bringing order to an instance of chaos unprecedented on our soil.

A no-holds-barred look at the collision of interests behind the ambitious attempt to raise a new national icon at Ground Zero Tragic and comic by turns, full of low dealings and high dud-geon, Sixteen Acrestakes us behind the scenes at a site in search of its sanctity, exposing the reconstruction as the flawed product of a complicated city: driven by money, hamstrung by politics, burdened by the wounds it is somehow supposed to heal.