The Age Of Terror: America And The World After September 11

by Strobe Talbott, Nayan Chanda

Momentous events have a way of connecting individuals both to history and to one another. So it was on September 11. Even before more than 4000 people died in less than two hours, there were farewell messages from the sky. In their last minutes, doomed passengers used cell phones to reach loved ones. A short time later, office workers trapped high in the burning towers called spouses, children, parents. Never had so many had the means to say good-bye. During the hours afterward, the survivors scrambled to make contact with family and friends. "Are you all right?" they asked. As the enormity of it all began to sink in, the question hanging in the air was, Were we all right? Since September 11, many have noted a humbling irony: the more time we'd spent in the old world and the better we thought we understood its organizing principles, the less ready we were for the new one. Suddenly, familiar terms and concepts were inadequate, starting with the word terrorism itself. The dictionary defines it as violence, particularly against civilians, carried out for a political purpose. September 11 certainly qualified. But American's earlier encounters with terrorism neither anticipated nor encompassed this new manifestation. Commentators instantly evoked Pearl Harbor, that other bolt-from-the-blue raid, sixty years before, as the closest thing to a precedent. But there really was none. This was something new under the sun.

Genres: Terrorism

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Mallory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating to read a book like this 20 years post-9/11, as the Afghan conflict was in its earliest stages on publication. Several essayists referenced wars like Vietnam with caution when speaking of their thoughts on what our plan should be in Afghanistan. How prescient they turned out to be.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically a bunch of essays by academics (mostly from Yale) that consists of describing certain elements as related to terrorism and US policy. The academics who composed these essays range from professors of history, law, political science, and there's one molecular biologist. I found most of these essays relevant and interesting from the point of view of examining globalism and also the political roots of fundamentalist Islam. Some of these commentators take the viewpoint that America needs to protect its dominant position and assume an imperalist attitude to do so. I found a little fault with that. I believe cooperation and tolerance is the key. Other commentators illustrate the point that we must be aggressive in combating terrorism and also learn productive measures to combat a potential bioterrorist attack. Most of this is common sense but each writer puts their own spin on it relating to the field they teach about. A little bit of the book was rough because it seemed to be put together rather hastily without proper editing. Also, there were two essays that got pretty dry and read more like reading some kind of intelligence memo. I found myself having to fight boredom a couple of times. Lastly, there were many comparisons drawn in the book between 9-11 and Pearl Harbor or even Britain's position as the dominant power 100 yrs earlier. This was somewhat tedious because we've heard these comparisons over and over. They are true to an extent but there has never been anything quite like 9-11 happen before. I don't know that we'll find any fool-proof answers to the problems of terror that we all face in a changing world in this book. However, it's good that books like this one open up the discussion so that we may dare to think about such matters before we are caught off guard. If you want something to pass the time that concerns political matters and is relatively accessible you should read this book. It's not spectacular but it's okay.