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Forums:
Do you agree with Niall Ferguson's argument?
Read Niall Ferguson's
New York Times article, "2011"
Learn more about Robert Pinsky
"Favorite Poem Project"
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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
Plus, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky speaks on the
poetry that arose out of Sept. 11th in Part 5 of our series, "Poetry
and Conflict."
(Listen to other
installments of "Poetry and Conflict" and read poems featured
in the series)
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