College Quarterly Summer 2006 - Volume 9 Number 3 Michael
Shermer New York: Henry Holt, 2004  Reviewed by Howard A.
Doughty  Despite all the horror, shock and awe, the events of
9/11 did not change the world. Environmental degradation,
various genocides, global and domestic poverty, threats of
pandemics, technological penetration into all aspects of our
public and private lives and the resurgence of religious
fundamentalism in all its forms persist unabated. All that
really happened in 2001 was that the United States was briefly
obliged to take direct notice of the violence that seems endemic
in human affairs, and which has too often been unleashed by the
United States itself in defence of its “national interests.” The
terrorist attacks were a compelling and unconscionable instance
of “blowback.” Since the initial trauma, the usual patterns have
simply been reaffirmed and, in the related cases of Iraq,
Afghanistan and in the unrelated case of Darfur, intensified.
World War II, in the alternative, really did