Eric Darton: Divided we stand

By MARGIE THOMSON

Written after the bombings - the 1993 bombings, that is - this "biography" of the World Trade Center and its symbolic place in the New York landscape is eerily prescient.

The twin towers, Darton writes, are a living language of the city's struggles: symbols of wealth, of disembodied communities, of the triumph of the corporate over the human, of a fundamental shift in the way we use land and air space.

But, following the 1993 explosion - and much more today - they symbolise a new language of explicit vulnerability.

"Through its association with terrifying images of ravaged bodies, of mangled steel and concrete, the World Trade Center presents itself as a window blown open into its own biography."

This book has taken on more relevance than the author dreamed at the outset of his project. Tragically, all we need do is change the tense from present to past.

Basic Books

$44.95