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.
About the Author: Priscilla Roberts is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Hong Kong, where she has taught since 1984, and is also Honorary Director of the university's Centre of American Studies. She has written or edited twenty books on twentieth-century diplomatic and international history, as well as many articles. Among them are The Cold War (Sutton, 2000); Window on the Forbidden City: The Chinese Diaries of David Bruce, 1973-1974 (2001); Behind the Bamboo Curtain: China, Vietnam, and the World Beyond Asia (2006); and Lord Lothian and Anglo-American Relations, 1900-1940 (2010). Mei Renyi is a Professor of Beijing Foreign Studies University, China, and the Director of the university's American Studies Center. He is a member of the editorial board of the American Studies Quarterly, published by the Chinese Association of American Studies and the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing. He is also an editorial board member for the International Forum of the Institute of International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University. His publications include the American Studies Reader; and numerous articles on various aspects of the United States. Yan Xunhua is a Lecturer at the American Studies Center of the School of English and International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. His teaching and research focus on the international politics of the United States' now much debated preeminent position in the world, US-China relations, and China's contemporary foreign relations.