History and September 11:
An Introduction

Joanne Meyerowitz

On September 12, 2001, a New York Times editorial described the horrific attacks of the previous day as "one of those moments in which history splits, and we define the world as 'before' and 'after.'"1 Yet as all of us know, history never rips in two. "Before" and "after" are never entirely severed, even in the moments of greatest historical rupture. The discontinuities of the past always remain within the whole cloth of the longue durée. As historians, we devote our careers to placing the seemingly new in historical contexts.	1
In the aftermath of September 11, the editors of the Journal of American History heard from colleagues and friends who longed for such historical perspective. Some wanted to teach about September 11 in their history classrooms; others hoped that historians would have a voice in shaping the public discourse on war, terrorism, and national ideals. In response, we decided to invite a handful of scholars to write short essays for the Journal. At first, we proposed a round table on the concept of terrorism and its history. But as we discussed the possibilities with our editorial board and other colleagues, we discovered demand for a broader range of investigation. In the end, we chose scholars with noted expertise on issues pertaining to terrorism, anti-Americanism, the Middle East, fundamentalist religious movements, and foreign relations, and we asked them for deliberative essays, scholarly pieces with deeper research and greater intellectual engagement than typically found in newspapers and magazines.2 The results are presented here in this special issue, "History and September 11."	2
The essays that follow draw on several scholarly traditions—international relations, cultural studies, and religious studies as well as history—and the authors approach their topics from different points on the political map. Nonetheless, a few themes appear repeatedly. Our authors comment on the dangers of forging or analyzing policy without keen awareness of history, and they tell cautionary tales involving critical moments in the past. They reject the sweeping panoramas that portray an age-old "clash of civilizations." They ask us to look instead at particular times and places and to remember the debates over, the contradictions within, and the unintended consequences of American nationalist ideals, modernizing visions, and policy prescriptions.	3
When the essays turn inward to the United States, they bring renewed attention to American national identity, to the stories Americans have told themselves and others about the meaning and power of this nation. After September 11, the legitimate anger and sense of injury led to stories in the popular press and elsewhere about "American" values and promoted fantasies of revenge and rescue in the name of a powerful nation done wrong. Our authors ask us to place such stories and fantasies within a longer history of American popular culture and U.S. foreign policy. Some of the stories told today rework older nationalist stories about America as the paternalist protector of the weak, the iconic beacon of freedom, or the benevolent vanguard of modernity. In both their older and newer guises, these narratives of the nation tend to hide the realpolitik of self-interest that often accompanied the language of morality, liberty, and progress, and in so doing they tend to reinforce long-standing myths of American exceptionalism. Nationalist rhetoric, our authors warn, can cloak the complexities of U.S. interventions abroad and of local politics in the United States and in other regions of the world. It can reduce complicated and multifaceted interactions to a temptingly simple struggle of "us" against "them" or good versus evil, and it also promises more than it can possibly deliver.	. . .