Although the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 shocked the world, America has confronted terrorism at home for well over a century. With the invention of dynamite in 1866, Americans began to worry about anonymous acts of mass violence in a way that differed from previous generations' fears of urban riots, slave uprisings, and mob violence. Focusing on the volatile period between the 1886 Haymarket bombing and the 1920 bombing outside J. P. Morgan's Wall Street office, Jeffory Clymer argues that economic and cultural displacements caused by the expansion of industrial capitalism directly influenced evolving ideas about terrorism. In America's Culture of Terrorism, Clymer uncovers the roots of American terrorism and its impact on American identity by exploring the literary works of Henry James, Ida B. Wells, Jack London, Thomas Dixon, and Covington Hall, as well as trial transcripts, media reports, and the cultural rhetoric surrounding terrorist acts of the day. He demonstrates that the rise of mass media and the pressures of the industrial wage-labor economy both fueled the development of terrorism and shaped society's response to it. His analysis not only sheds new light on American literature and culture a century ago but also offers insights into the contemporary understanding of terrorism.

This scathing critique of U.S. political culture is a brilliant analysis of the Iran-contra scandal. Chomsky offers a message of hope, reminding us that resistance is possible, necessary, and effective.

In response to the events following September 11, a number of leading cultural studies and interpretive qualitative researchers write from their own experiences and hearts. From the poetic to the personal, the theoretical to the historical, their essays_by noted scholars Kellner, Fine, McLaren, Richardson, Denzin, Giroux, and others_are collected in this volume, and were written in crisis within days and weeks of September 11. The immediacy of their writing is refreshing, and reflects the varied emotional and critical responses that bring meaning to this cataclysmal event.

Introduction: The Politics of Memory in the Post-9/11 Era -- Monuments and Voids: The Proliferation of 9/11 Memory -- The Objects That Lived, the Voices That Remain: The 9/11 Museum -- Global Architecture, Patriotic Skyscrapers, and a Cathedral Shopping Mall: The Rebuilding of Lower Manhattan -- Visibility and Erasure: Memory and the "Global War on Terror" -- The Memory of Racial Terror: The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum.

Taking a critical look at the politics of American culture in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, contributors offer a multi-disciplinary approach in their examination of how our existing cultural patterns, have shaped our response to it.

After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a stunned public asked: How could this happen? Why did the attackers do what they did? What did they hope to accomplish? This wasn't the first battle in a conflict that has included bombings of U.S. embassies and planes, the Iran hostage crisis, and kidnappings or shootings of American citizens. This unique volume sets out to answer these questions using the unfiltered words of the terrorists themselves. Over many decades, radical forces in the Middle East have changed and evolved, yet their basic outlook and anti-Western views have remained remarkably consistent. Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin have assembled nearly one hundred key documents, charting the evolution of radical Middle East movements, their anti-Americanism, and Western policy response. The buildup to the battle between a world superpower and Middle East revolutionaries is brought dramatically to life. Among the documents included are the charters of such organizations as Hizballah, Hamas, and World Islamic Front; speeches by Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad and former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein; al-Qa'ida recruitment materials; and terrorist training manuals. The book also shows and analyzes the often conflicting and deeply conflicted responses to September 11 by journalists, clerics, and activists in the Arab world. Supplemented by an annotated chronology, a glossary of terms, and sections that put each selection in context, this comprehensive reference serves not only as essential historical background to the ongoing aftermath of the September 11 attacks, but more generally as an invaluable framework for understanding a long-term, continuing conflict that has caused many crises for the United States.

Post-9/11 America is in a cultural haze. The relationship between terror and crime is evolving more closely together at the same time that many Americans seem to have forgotten that America, too, is a source of terrorism. Domestic terror is a long-standing and ongoing pattern within American culture, having woven itself into America's social, geographical and emotional heart, with support from problems in America's national character and American society. American culture will keep moving, either in the direction of the jackal, representing terror, or in the direction of the phoenix, representing the ability not just to revive, but also to become stronger after a terrorist attack. Americans who are accustomed to comfort and convenience have the challenge of understanding that domestic terror can be combated by rooting out problems in contemporary American culture. To fight the collective psychological challenge of terrorism, Americans need to come out of their individual social boxes and create a culture characterized less by anger and fear. Short American memories and the tendency to view each American terrorist as one more deranged individual both prevent Americans from seeing domestic terror as a pattern that is characteristic of the culture, and that can be fought from a cultural perspective. Oklahoma City, school bombers, snipers, and the Unabomber are all expressions of the dark side of American character, a side that America tends to deny. That dark side is fueled by a cultural paradox. Individuals who are powerful in a land that is independent and free, have come to feel disempowered instead because of the scale of American culture and a disconnected social environment.Americans have lost a sense of their positive social power. American terrorists react to that feeling by making intensive pathological social connections instead, with acts of violent destruction. Tim McVeigh, the smiley-face bomber, and an ongoing parade of American perpetrators of terror