Commentators and artists attempting to represent the events of September 11, 2001, struggle to create meaning in the face of such powerful experiences. This collection of essays offers critical insights into the discourses that shape the memory of 9/11 in the narrative genres of comics, literature, film, and theatre. It examines historical, political, cultural, and personal meanings of the disaster and its aftermath through critical discussions of Marvel and New Yorker comics, American and British novels, Hollywood films, and the plays of Anne Nelson.
From the Newsuem, America's only museum of news, comes the definitive book detailing behind the scenes of how journalist covered the deadly assaults of September 11, 2001.
American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11 is a ground-breaking collection of essays by some of the foremost scholars writing in the field of contemporary American film. Through a dynamic critical analysis of the defining films of the turbulent post-9/11 decade, the volume explores and interrogates the impact of 9/11 and the 'War on Terror' on American cinema and culture. In a vibrant discussion of films like American Sniper (2014), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Spectre (2015), The Hateful Eight (2015), Lincoln (2012), The Mist (2007), Children of Men (2006), Edge of Tomorrow (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), noted authors Geoff King, Guy Westwell, John Shelton Lawrence, Ian Scott, Andrew Schopp, James Kendrick, Sean Redmond, Steffen Hantke and many others consider the power of popular film to function as a potent cultural artefact, able to both reflect the defining fears and anxieties of the tumultuous era, but also shape them in compelling and resonant ways.
From the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, a mesmerizing real-time portrayal of that day, why we weren?t told the truth, and why our nation is still at risk. As one of the primary authors of the 9/11 Commission Report, John Farmer is proud of his and his colleagues? work. Yet he came away from the experience convinced that there was a further story to be told, one he was uniquely qualified to write. Now that story can be told. Tape recordings, transcripts, and contemporaneous records that had been classified have since been declassified, and the inspector general?s investigations of government conduct have been completed. Drawing on his knowledge of those sources, as well as his years as an attorney in public and private practice, Farmer reconstructs the truth of what happened on that fateful day and the disastrous circumstances that allowed it: the institutionalized disconnect between what those on the ground knew and what those in power did. He details ?terrifyingly and illuminatingly?the key moments in the years, months, weeks, and days that preceded the attacks, then descends almost in real time through the attacks themselves, portraying them as they have never before been seen. Ultimately, Farmer builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version not only is almost entirely untrue but serves to create a false impression of order and security. The ground truth that Farmer captures suggests a very different scenario?one that is doomed to be repeated unless the systemic failures he reveals are confronted and remedied.
In over fifteen years, the cultural and artistic response to 9/11 has been wide-ranging in form and function. As the turbulent post-9/11 years have unfolded – years that have been shaped and characterized by the War on Terror, the Patriot Act, the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 7/7, Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay – these texts have been commemorative and heroic, have attempted to work through collective and individual traumas, and have struggled with trying to represent the “terrorist other.” Many of these earlier domestic, heroic and traumatic works have so often been read as limitations in narrative. This collection, however, challenges the language of limitation and provides re-readings of earlier work, but also traces the emergence of a new paradigm for discussing the artistic responses to 9/11 – one that frames these narratives as dialogic, self-conscious and self-reflexive interventions in the responses to the attacks, the initial representations of the attacks, and the ever-shifting social and geopolitical continuities of the 9/11 decade. These texts widen the conversation about the lasting impacts of 9/11, and incorporate strands of discussion on American exceptionalism and imperialism, torture, and otherness, whilst still remaining invested in the personal and collective traumas of the attacks. The authors included here ask crucial questions about the way 9/11 is being historicized: will it, for example, be read as a moment of rupture or epoch? Will it inevitably be attached to the War on Terror or the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? As they trace the emergent patterns of reflexivity, politicization and dissent, the contributions here are also implicitly invested in asking how far they extend.
Bestselling author and psychologist Shermer explains how evolution has shaped the modern economy--and why people are so irrational about money. Drawing on the new field of neuroeconomics, Shermer investigates what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and establishing trust in business.
Having made The 9/11 Commission Report understandable for everyone, the award-winning, bestselling graphic novel team of Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón use all their considerable talents to explain the post-9/11 world. Working from news reports drawn from multiple international media, Jacobson and Colón depict the critical events, decision makers, and consequences of America’s “war on terror,” and, most important, the context in which the war began, unfolded, and unraveled. The most demanding story they have ever tackled, After 9/11 is also the most tailor-made for their medium, capturing simultaneous events, geographic complexity, numerous participants, and a vast array of economic, statistical, and quantitative information—compellingly told through the sequential panel art narrative form unique to graphic books. Proving yet again that graphic novels best meet the challenge of giving the most information with the least amount of ink, Jacobson and Colón answer with clarity and unforgettable imagery the question: How the hell did we end up where we are?
Collected essays from bestselling author Michael Shermer's celebrated columns in Scientific American For fifteen years, bestselling author Michael Shermer has written a column in Scientific American magazine that synthesizes scientific concepts and theory for a general audience. His trademark combination of deep scientific understanding and entertaining writing style has thrilled his huge and devoted audience for years. Now, in Skeptic, seventy-five of these columns are available together for the first time; a welcome addition for his fans and a stimulating introduction for new readers.
From the bestselling author of Tides of Honour and Promises to Keep comes a poignant novel about a young couple caught on opposite sides of the Second World War. In the fall of 1939, Grace Baker’s three brothers, sharp and proud in their uniforms, board Canadian ships headed for a faraway war. Grace stays behind, tending to the homefront and the general store that helps keep her small Nova Scotian community running. The war, everyone says, will be over before it starts. But three years later, the fighting rages on and rumours swirl about “wolf packs” of German U-Boats lurking in the deep waters along the shores of East Jeddore, a stone’s throw from Grace’s window. As the harsh realities of war come closer to home, Grace buries herself in her work at the store. Then, one day, a handsome stranger ventures into the store. He claims to be a trapper come from away, and as Grace gets to know him, she becomes enamoured by his gentle smile and thoughtful ways. But after several weeks, she discovers that Rudi, her mysterious visitor, is not the lonely outsider he appears to be. He is someone else entirely—someone not to be trusted. When a shocking truth about her family forces Grace to question everything she has so strongly believed, she realizes that she and Rudi have more in common than she had thought. And if Grace is to have a chance at love, she must not only choose a side, but take a stand. Come from Away is a mesmerizing story of love, shifting allegiances, and second chances, set against the tumultuous years of the Second World War.
