Description
'We are all responsible. We have drunk in the excess and indulged in the comfort. Equally, we are the heirs of a long and rich culture. The seriousness of the condition into which we have been cast demands that we all wake up from our day-to-day oblivion, and focus on the reality.'
In this brilliant and provocative essay, noted author and sociologist Dr John Carroll argues that there is a deeper story behind the events of September 11, 2001 and their immediate aftermath. He believes that the attacks on the World Trade Center have exposed the Western world not just to terror, but to an underlying cultural emptiness that is crippling its ability to respond adequately.
As he ranges from the ancient Greek gods to recent American films, visiting Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness on the way, Carroll argues that the West is in psychic disarray. What we all face now is the threat of further attacks from Usama bin Laden's al-Qaeda global terrorist network, whose range and penetration is not well appreciated. And we do so from a suspect foundation that we could once rely on, now leached away by a secular culture which evades self-knowledge and feeds on excess.
This scintillating book will reverberate as a warning, as a call to arms, and as a testament to the power of the human imagination.
ISBN:9780908011841
