The contributors to this landmark collection set the attacks on the Unites States in historical perspective. The reject the simplistic notion of an age- old "clash of civilizations" and instead examine the particular histories of American nationalism, anti-Americanism, U.S. foreign policy, and Islamic fundamentalism among other topics. With renewed attention to American's sense of national identity, they focus on the United states in relation to the rest of the world. A collection of recent and historical documents--speeches, articles, and book excerpts--supplement the essays. Taken together, the essays and sources in this volume comment on the dangers of seeing the events of September 11 as splitting the nation's history into "before" and "after." The argue eloquently that no useful understanding of the present is possible without an unobstructed view of the past.