China Views Nine-Eleven: Essays in Transnational American Studies

The events of September 11, 2001, had reverberations which were felt across the world, not just in the United States. In their aftermath the United States refocused its foreign policies, a process that had a major impact upon the Asia Pacific region, especially China. In this cross-disciplinary collection of essays, almost two dozen scholars, the majority of them from China, range across a wide spectrum of issues to address just how Nine-Eleven affected the United States globally and at home. Different authors discuss non-Americans’ images of the United States, the nation’s international position and policies, the mindset and influence of neo-conservatives, American internal politics, debates over immigration, the cultural repercussions of Nine-Eleven for television, literature, drama, art, and music, and the implications of efforts to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001.Uniting all these essays is the effort to view the events of September 11, 2001, not in isolation but in a much broader context, a framework encompassing the entire sweep of US involvement in the world since the seventeenth century, and the country’s political, intellectual, cultural, and literary history and traditions. The dialogue among them produces a complicated and fruitful dialectical network of cross-fertilization across different areas, a stimulating and intricate cat’s cradle from which the enterprising reader may draw new and profitable intellectual discoveries.