Detroit: An American Autopsy

Back in his broken hometown, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charlie LeDuff searched the ruins of Detroit for clues to his family’s troubled past. Once the richest city in America, Detroit became one of the nation’s poorest. Once the vanguard of America’s machine age, Detroit was for a long time America’s capital for unemployment, illiteracy, dropouts and foreclosures. LeDuff set out to uncover what destroyed his city, and what he discovered was an unbelievable story of a hard town in a rough time filled with some of the strangest and strongest people our country has to offer.
"Since its founding, Detroit has been a place of perpetual flames. Three times the city has suffered race riots and three times the city has burned to the ground. The city’s flag acknowledges as much. Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus: We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes."
- Charlie LeDuff, Detroit