On the tenth anniversary of the Septemer 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, David Ray Griffin reviews the troubling questions that remain unanswered 9/11 Ten Years Later is David Ray Griffin's tenth book about the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Asking in the first chapter whether 9/11 justified the war in Afghanistan, he explains why it did not. In the following three chapters, devoted to the destruction of the World Trade Center, Griffin asks why otherwise rational journalists have endorsed miracles (understood as events that contradict laws of science). Also, introducing the book's theme, Griffin points out that 9/11 has been categorized by some social scientists as a state crime against democracy. Turning next to debates within the 9/11 Truth Movement, Griffin reinforces his claim that the reported phone calls from the airliners were faked, and argues that the intensely debated issue about the Pentagon—whether it was struck by a Boeing 757—is quite unimportant. Finally, Griffin suggests that the basic faith of Americans is not Christianity but "nationalist faith"—which most fundamentally prevents Americans from examining evidence that 9/11 was orchestrated by U.S. leaders—and argues that the success thus far of the 9/11 state crime against democracy need not be permanent.

An uncompromising portrait of identity, family, religion, race, and class that “cuts to the bone” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) told through Omer Aziz’s incisive and luminous prose. In a tough neighborhood on the outskirts of Toronto, miles away from wealthy white downtown, Omer Aziz struggles to find his place as a first-generation Pakistani Muslim boy. He fears the violence and despair of the world around him, and sees a dangerous path ahead, succumbing to aimlessness, apathy, and rage. In his senior year of high school, Omer quickly begins to realize that education can open up the wider world. But as he falls in love with books, and makes his way to Queen’s University in Ontario, Sciences Po in Paris, Cambridge University in England, and finally Yale Law School, he continually confronts his own feelings of doubt and insecurity at being an outsider, a brown-skinned boy in an elite white world. He is searching for community and identity, asking questions of himself and those he encounters, and soon finds himself in difficult situations—whether in the suburbs of Paris or at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Yet the more books Omer reads and the more he moves through elite worlds, his feelings of shame and powerlessness only grow stronger, and clear answers recede further away. Weaving together his powerful personal narrative with the books and friendships that move him, Aziz wrestles with the contradiction of feeling like an Other and his desire to belong to a Western world that never quite accepts him. He poses the questions he couldn’t have asked in his youth: Was assimilation ever really an option? Could one transcend the perils of race and class? And could we—the collective West—ever honestly confront the darker secrets that, as Aziz discovers, still linger from the past? In Brown Boy, Omer Aziz has written an eye-opening book that eloquently describes the complex process of creating an identity that fuses where he’s from, what people see in him, and who he knows himself to be.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This is history at its most immediate and moving…A marvelous and memorable book.” —Jon Meacham “Remarkable…A priceless civic gift…On page after page, a reader will encounter words that startle, or make him angry, or heartbroken.” —The Wall Street Journal “Visceral...I repeatedly cried…This book captures the emotions and unspooling horror of the day.” —NPR “Had me turning each page with my heart in my throat…There’s been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it.” —Katie Couric The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001—a panoramic narrative woven from the voices of Americans on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma. Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, which traced the rise of al-Qaeda, to The 9/11 Commission Report, the government’s definitive factual retrospective of the attacks. But one perspective has been missing up to this point—a 360-degree account of the day told through the voices of the people who experienced it. Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, award-winning journalist and bestselling historian Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was lived—in the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, Graff paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet. Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York City, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker underneath the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard the small number of unarmed fighter jets in the air, pilots make a pact to fly into a hijacked airliner if necessary to bring it down. In the skies above Pennsylvania, civilians aboard United Flight 93 make the ultimate sacrifice in their place. Then, as the day moves forward and flights are grounded nationwide, Air Force One circles the country alone, its passengers isolated and afraid. More than simply a collection of eyewitness testimonies, The Only Plane in the Sky is the historic narrative of how ordinary people grappled with extraordinary events in real time: the father and son working in the North Tower, caught on different ends of the impact zone; the firefighter searching for his wife who works at the World Trade Center; the operator of in-flight telephone calls who promises to share a passenger’s last words with his family; the beloved FDNY chaplain who bravely performs last rites for the dying, losing his own life when the Towers collapse; and the generals at the Pentagon who break down and weep when they are barred from rushing into the burning building to try to rescue their colleagues. At once a powerful tribute to the courage of everyday Americans and an essential addition to the literature of 9/11, The Only Plane in the Sky weaves together the unforgettable personal experiences of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives.

“You are a herald for your generation....Thank you for using your voice to help us make sense of that dark day, and forge a new beginning.”—Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a letter to Helaina Hovitz Helaina Hovitz was twelve years old and in middle school just blocks away when the World Trade Center was attacked. Her memoir encapsulates the journey of a girl growing up with PTSD after living through the events firsthand. After 9/11 chronicles its effects on a young girl at the outset of adolescence, following her as she spirals into addiction and rebellion, through loss, chaos, and confusion. The events and experiences that are now common knowledge to everyone were a very real part of Helaina’s life and are still as vivid in her memory today. The sickening thud of falling bodies hitting cars, and the crumbling towers, her universe engulfed literally in a cloud, was all so much for a young girl to experience. Hundreds were stranded in the neighborhood, including Helaina, without phones or electricity or anyone to help. For fear of subsequent attack, not to mention the toxic substances in the air, few went outside. In the wake of 9/11, fear and despair took over her life. It would take Helaina more than a decade to overcome the PTSD—and subsequent alcohol addiction—that went misdiagnosed and mistreated for so many years. In many ways, After 9/11 is the story of a generation growing up in the aftermath of America’s darkest day—and for one young woman, it is the story of a survivor who, after witnessing the end, got to make a new beginning.

This book provides a multifaceted array of answers to the question, In the ten years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, how has America responded? In a series of essays, RAND authors lend a farsighted perspective to the national dialogue on 9/11's legacy. The essays assess the military, political, fiscal, social, cultural, psychological, and even moral implications of U.S. policymaking since 9/11. Part One of the book addresses the lessons learned from America's accomplishments and mistakes in its responses to the 9/11 attacks and the ongoing terrorist threat. Part Two explores reactions to the extreme ideologies of the terrorists and to the fears they have generated. Part Three presents the dilemmas of asymmetrical warfare and suggests ways to resolve them. Part Four cautions against sacrificing a long-term strategy by imposing short-term solutions, particularly with respect to air passenger security and counterterrorism intelligence. Finally, Part Five looks at the effects of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. public health system, at the potential role of compensation policy for losses incurred by terrorism, and at the possible long-term effects of terrorism and counterterrorism on American values, laws, and society.--Publisher description.

An estimated 2 billion people around the world watched the catastrophic destruction of the World Trade Center. The enormity of the moment was immediately understood and quickly took on global proportions. What has been less obvious is the effect on the locus of the attacks, New York City, not as a seat of political or economic power, but as a community; not in the days and weeks afterward, but over months and years. New York after 9/11 offers insightful and critical observations about the processes set in motion by September 11, 2001 in New York, and holds important lessons for the future. This interdisciplinary collection brings together experts from diverse fields to discuss the long-term recovery of New York City after 9/11. Susan Opotow and Zachary Baron Shemtob invited experts in architecture and design, medicine, health, community advocacy, psychology, public safety, human rights, law, and mental health to look back on the aftereffects of that tragic day in key spheres of life in New York City. With a focus on the themes of space and memory, public health and public safety, trauma and conflict, and politics and social change, this comprehensive account of how 9/11 changed New York sets out to answer three questions: What were the key conflicts that erupted in New York City in 9/11’s wake? What clashing interests were involved and how did they change over time? And what was the role of these conflicts in the transition from trauma to recovery for New York City as a whole? Contributors discuss a variety of issues that emerged in this tragedy’s wake, some immediately and others in the years that followed, including: PTSD among first responders; conflicts and design challenges of rebuilding the World Trade Center site, the memorial, and the museum; surveillance of Muslim communities; power struggles among public safety agencies; the development of technologies for faster building evacuations; and the emergence of chronic illnesses and fatalities among first responders and people who lived, worked, and attended school in the vicinity of the 9/11 site. A chapter on two Ground Zeros –in Hiroshima and New York – compares and historicizes the challenges of memorialization and recovery. Each chapter offers a nuanced, vivid, and behind-the-scenes account of issues as they unfolded over time and across various contexts, dispelling simplistic narratives of this extended and complicated period. Illuminating a city’s multifaceted response in the wake of a catastrophic and traumatic attack, New York after 9/11 illustrates recovery as a process that is complex, multivalent, and ongoing.