Margaret C. (oneta) reviewed on 8/18/2010 + 36 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

"The attacks of 9/11 marked a new morning in America - a wake-up call, you'd think, for a country that had become habituated to peace and prosperity and had had the luxury of devoting several years to obsessing about a president's seamy sex life.
But whatever else 9/11 was, we can see now that it was the beginning of a new national narrative - a compelling and often persuaasive story that was told by the president of the United States and his administration to mobilize a shell-shocked country desperate to be led. The story was often at variance with the facts that were known at the time, let alone with the facts that have come to light since. But it did have a slick patina of plausibility. The story was effective enough to take America into a war against a nation that did not attack it on 9/11. When future Americans look back on this period and ask, 'How did this happen?' the bultural context of the early twenty-first century may explain at least as much as the characters and offical actions that played out against that backdrop."

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