In my earlier essay posted on the SSRC website, I spoke of the “tragic predicament of a diaspora caught between deeply felt loyalties, at an historical moment not of its own making. Most British Muslims in the diaspora,” I commented, “witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center’s twin towers on television, sitting in their living rooms, with the same helpless sense of horror as Western spectators. [...]
In the days immediately following September 11, 2001, the Council invited a wide range of leading social scientists from around the world to write short essays for an online forum, After September 11. Written against two-week deadlines when it was difficult to come by sure knowledge in a time of quickly changing circumstances, the forum’s essays would be downloaded millions of times and used extensively by teachers and journalists.
A decade later, contributors to the original forum were asked to reflect on what they wrote and to explore what has changed and what remains the same since those harrowing times. The result is this extraordinary digital collection of new essays, 10 Years after September 11. Short and written in a style that is accessible to both academic and non-academic readers, the essays offer deep, expert analysis of developments since 9/11 from the perspectives of the social sciences.