Terrorism in American Memory

We will never forget! In the wake of the horrific events on 9/11, Americans vowed to never forget the tragic events of that day & the Americans we lost. But how do you memorialize the events in an honorable manner for those we lost on that September day in 2001? Marita Sturken methodically examines the memorial sites for 9/11 in New York, Washington DC & Shanksville, PA. While these memorials were meant to honor the victims of the September 11th attacks, they are also painful reminders for many family members. Moving beyond 9/11, how much have the events of 9/11 shaped us as a country? Are we more polarized as a nation based on our experiences of 9/11? Sturken expands the discussion by viewing the massive protests & police brutality in recent years via the lens of the equal justice work of Bryan Stevenson in Montgomery, Alabama. Like the memorials of 9/11, the National Memorial for Peace & Justice memorialize the tragic events of our nation’s dark past. Prior to its opening in 2018, no other memorial commemorated these events in such a detailed manner.

This was a wonderful read! I learned a great deal from this book & I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Having read Terrorism in American Memory, I plan to visit the sites of these memorials in the near future.

Thank you to Netgalley and New York University Press for a free copy of this upcoming book in exchange for an honest review. I would like to start by saying this book is entirely fascinating. 9/11 is easily the most talked about event in American history. However, that being said this book placed the 20 years since the attack in contexts that I had never thought of and had never seen argued before. This text examines the post 9/11 era in order to analyze the ways that we as a country choose to remember the events, memorialize them, and rebuild in their wake. The book makes some great points about the way that New York and the public at large have chosen to remember the attacks but look away from the events that came after and our role in them. I thought the author made a lot of great points about the 9/11 museum and the "designed by committee" feel that it has taken as well as the hypocrisy of the consumerism of the site. However, perhaps the smartest thing the author does here is use the last chapter to explore an entirely different museum and memorial in Alabama that examines history of slavery and all of the oppression of African Americans that followed and continues to this day. The contrast to the 9/11 museum and the way that it forces the visitor to grapple with the effects of the actions of a nation was an incredibly powerful way to end the book.