Sometimes when historians disagree there are fundamental issues at stake; sometimes differences of interpretation. Often the evidence is still being gathered, so any interpretation is open to revision. From a historical point of view, ten years is not a very long time, yet it is time enough to begin trying to explain the consequences of a major event like the attacks of September 11.
What does UT history professor Jeremi Suri mean in his “Global Brief” blog when he says that nothing changed and “9/11 doesn’t matter”?
In “The Worst Mistake America Made after 9/11,” Slate’s Anne Applebaum argues that, on the contrary, significant changes have taken place in the past decade.
Columbia University Economist Joseph Stiglitz makes a similar argument on his blog at Project Syndicate, yet he and Suri don’t disagree about everything, do they?
And Brian Michael Jenkins minimizes the impact of 9/11 in his op-ed in the Washington Post, Five Myths about 9/11, but he seems to view the past decade differently from Suri, Applebaum and Stiglitz.
If you want more, there are short, interesting takes on 9/11 from around the world at Open Democracy.
Joan Neuberger