Online Book Display: September 11, 2001

About 3,000 people lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. Thousands more narrowly escaped, their survival a result of eerily prescient spur-of-the-moment decisions, acts of superhuman courage, the unfailing kindness of strangers, and, in some cases, fortuitous strokes of luck. September 11: An Oral History unites the voices of that day. It is at once a dramatic reminder of one of the most devastating events in history of the nation and a tribute to the spirit of cooperation and the outpourings of empathy that marked that day for so many people in the United States and abroad.

The terrorist attacks on September 11th were unique and unprecedented in many ways, but the day will stand in our memories particularly because of our ability to watch the spectacle unfold. The blazing towers crumbling into dust, black smoke rising from the Pentagon, the unrecognizable remains of a fourth airplane in a quiet Pennsylvania field--these images, while disturbing and surreal, provide an important vehicle for interdisciplinary dialogue within media studies, showing us how horrific national disasters are depicted in various media.

In Film and Television After 9/11, distinguished film scholars discuss the production, reception, and distribution of Hollywood and foreign films after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and examine how moviemaking has changed to reflect the new world climate. While some contemporary films offer escapism, much of mainstream American cinema since 9/11 is centered on the desire for a "just war" in which military reprisals and escalation of warfare appear to be both inevitable and justified.

From The Newseum, America's first interactive museum of news, comes the definitive book detailing behind-the-scenes stories of how journalists covered the deadly assaults of September 11, 2001. Three kinds of people instinctively run toward danger--firefighters, police officers, and journalists. Collected here are dramatic first-person stories of more than 100 reporters and photographers who raced to the scenes of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in rural Pennsylvania.

In this pathbreaking book, Amy Zegart provides the first scholarly examination of the intelligence failures that preceded September 11 and shows how and why the intelligence system itself left us vulnerable. She argues that after the Cold War ended, the CIA and FBI failed to adapt to the rise of terrorism. She makes the case by conducting painstaking analysis of more than three hundred intelligence reform recommendations and tracing the history of CIA and FBI counterterrorism efforts from 1991 to 2001, drawing extensively from declassified government documents and interviews with more than seventy high-ranking government officials. She finds that political leaders were well aware of the emerging terrorist danger and the urgent need for intelligence reform, but failed to achieve the changes they sought.

This interdisciplinary study of how 9/11 and the 'war on terror' were represented during the Bush era, shows how culture often functioned as a vital resource, for citizens attempting to make sense of momentous historical events that frequently seemed beyond their influence or control. Illustrated throughout, the book discusses representation of 9/11 and the war on terror in Hollywood film, the 9/11 novel, mass media, visual art and photography, political discourse, and revisionist historical accounts of American 'empire,' between the September 11 attacks and the Congressional midterm elections in 2006.

The strike against the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was a violent blow against the United States and a symbolic attack on capitalism and commerce. It shut down one of the world's busiest commercial centers for weeks, destroyed or damaged billions of dollars worth of property, and forced many New York City employers to slash their payrolls or move jobs to other areas. The immediate economic effect was substantial, but how badly did 9/11 affect New York City's economy in the longer term? In Resilient City, Howard Chernick and a team of economic experts examine the city's economic recovery in the three years following the destruction of the Twin Towers.

A powerful and eye-filling photographic chronicle of the award-winning New York Times's coverage of 9/11 and its aftermath worldwide, including the war in Afghanistan. The result is groundbreaking photojournalism punctuated with authoritative prose. Culled from both published and previously unpublished material, A Nation Challenged highlights the best work of the paper's award-winning staffers.

In words, pictures and video, What We Saw is a unique historical record of the events of September 11th. This unique and moving book records how we learned about this international tragedy and came to understand and survive it. Through still photography, video footage and the accounts of survivors and journalists, the events of that horrific day are brought vividly to life.

This collection of interdisciplinary essays examines the historical, political, and social significance of 9/11. It considers 9/11 as an event situated within the much larger historical context of late late-capitalism, a paradoxical time in which American and capitalist hegemony exist as pervasive and yet under precarious circumstances. Contributors to this collection examine the ways in which 9/11 changed both everything and, at the same time, nothing at all. They likewise examine the implications of 9/11 through a variety of different media and art forms including literature, film, television, and street art.