How History Will View September 11th

It's been a common catch phrase since September 11th: the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington completely changed the world as we know it. But historian Niall Ferguson says a broader view would say otherwise. "Tragic and spectacular though it was," Ferguson writes, "that event was far less of a turning point than is generally believed." History, Ferguson argues, results from underlying trends, not explosive events. Terrorism has been on the rise for five decades. Suicide airplane attacks date back to the Japanese kamikazes. Radical Islam dates back over one hundred years. Even in the absence of 9/11, there would be increased security measures in the U.S., more terrorist attacks, and greater tensions between the West and the Muslim world. This hour, the impact of September 11, 2001 on history.

Guests:

Niall Ferguson, Professor of political and financial history at the University of Oxford and author of The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000