Terrifying Thoughts: Power, Order, and Terror after 9/11

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 had a profound effect on the Bush administration's foreign policy. This review essay examines a set of books and documents that illuminate the dominant American threat perceptions in the post–September 11 environment and analyse both the strategies and the new directions that have emerged in U.S. policy in response to the new threat perceptions. Several of the books under review explore the deep socioeconomic and ideological origins of the wide support found in the American public for the Bush administration's bold and often controversial policy choices. Taken together, these works convey the impression that Bush's strategic impulses will have considerable staying power in the American body politic.