We are ten years into this great historical shift, appropriately set in motion with a new millennium, and we have not yet begun to comprehend the size of it. Such climacteric moments of history are many (multiplied endlessly if you subscribe to the absurdum of the butterfly effect or one of the endless conspiracy theories indulged by immature people too lazy to do their homework). In those schools which still teach history, we are informed of the surprising events of October 10th, 732, and October 14th, 1066. Not incorrectly, we have been comparing September 11th, 2001 to December 7th, 1941, though, historically, it appears that our most recent day of infamy might fall far closer in significance to those first two prior moments in time.

Besides those who refuse to be engaged by self-doubt or question the world outside of their front yards, I know of more than a few seemingly intelligent and generally well-educated people, who actually see themselves as intellectuals for their concern over matters of culture and politics, but who would rather speculate over what might have happened if the arrow had missed Harold’s eye at Hastings than have a reasonable discussion over the events they so facilely denigrate to the antiseptic nomenclature of  “9-11.”

It would appear that for most Americans a rational discussion of the historical circumstance of September 11th, 2001 remains off-limits — placed in the closet along with such delicate items as sexuality, abortion, and the Kennedy assassination. (I don’t wish to belittle the subjects of sexuality and abortion by such a comparison, but to draw upon the obvious absurdity of it).

It is the common cultural zeitgeist that we do not discuss such matters easily. By the numbers alone, we have ourselves become “a little people, a silly people, greedy, barbarous and cruel,” more interested in the bread and circuses of reality television programming than in the future of our children.

And typically, those who will speak freely on such matters have a near religious experience of the subject and a compulsion to express themselves which has less to do with conversation or mutual understanding and more to do with professing their faith aloud. The louder the better. Politely engaging the subject with these people, we are quickly netted by the particulars of the magic bullet and missing frames of eight-millimeter film. Please don’t let the facts get in the way.

On this sad anniversary, I offer these books about September 11th for your consideration. They are all credible and well written. They may be disturbing, and in the long run of history prove to be mistaken on one matter or another, but they are the best efforts of their authors to get it right. Their subjects range from cause to effect and all that happened in-between.

The first and best book, according to authorities on both sides of the political divide, and addressing the subject broadly, is Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.

An author and editor of special note, who must not be forgotten, is the extraordinary Michael Kelly. His short essays offered both a sharpened criticism and a fine understanding of a great nation neglecting its responsibilities, including those very things which made September 11th possible. As editor at the Atlantic, our national decay and blessings were made manifest. His death as a correspondent in Iraq is a loss which is readily evident in the posthumous anthology, Things Worth Fighting For.

A more visceral understanding of the facts at ‘ground zero’ can be had by reading these books: 102 Minutes: the Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, by Jim Dwyer ; Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11, by Damon DiMarco; Report from Ground Zero by Dennis Smith ; Firehouse, by David Halberstam, concerning the men of a small fire station which answered the call to duty and lost all; and the enlightening and well written American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center by William Langewiesche.

All that happened that day did not take place at ‘ground zero.’ Unfortunately the attack on the Pentagon itself is still much classified, but one good book about what we do know is: Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11 by Patrick Creed, Rick Newman.

And then about the plane that never reached it’s destination there is: Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the passengers and crew who fought back, by Jere Longman

To gain the historical perspective of one of the few intellects fully engaged in the subject over the past ten years and through his evolution of thought find a broader perspective, you could not do better than to start with Victor Davis Hanson’s An Autumn of War: what America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism ;  and Between War and Peace: lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq ; and then The Father of us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.

For a scholarly overview on the source of the attack, deeply detailed and faceted, try Bernard Lewis, Islam and the West; and From Babel to Dragomans, and his shorter What Went Wrong? And please don’t miss Fouad A. Ajami, a voice heard frequently on the radio and television, who has written The Foreigner’s Gift: the Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq; and The Dream Palace of the Arabs; as well as The Arab Predicament.

For more sobering insight into the mind of the enemy read: The Confrontation, or Future Jihad, or The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy, all by Walid Phares. To begin with the first attack on the World Trade Center in February 1993, read Andrew C. McCarthy’s Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad or The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America. For speculations on the origins of the conflict read Accomplice to Evil: Iran and the War against the West by Michael A. Ledeen ; or Peter L. Bergen’s Holy War, Inc.: Inside the secret world of Osama bin Laden ; or Yossef Bodansky’s bin Laden: the Man Who Declared War on America ; or The New Jackels: Ramzi Yousef, Osama bi Laden and the Future of Terrorism, by Simon Reeve.

Finally, for sleep inducing detail without adequate context try

The 9/11 Commission Report published by the United States Government. It may remind some of the Warren Commission Report, but most of its failings are a result of short-sightedness, not conspiracy. Obviously (except to those aforementioned conspiracy types) essential national security has made the redaction of key facts necessary, and thus this is not the full story, even from the government’s point of view, but simply a dump of loose fact and assumption deemed sufficient to justify military action. For a quicker hit on the same material, try The 9/11 Report : a graphic adaptation a good reduction of the government Commission report. And if all else fails, try The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Middle East Conflict by Mitchell G. Bard. You can wrap the cover in a brown paper grocery bag and pretend it’s a textbook.

Before September 11th, 2001, many of us thought we knew what our problems were, and some were even sure of the way to fix them. Afterwards, anyone still clinging to the ideas of September 10th deserves our contempt.

 

 

 

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